LegalTech News | Top 10 Predictions for the Legal Technology Job Market in 2025

As we step into 2025, the legal technology job market is set to undergo significant transformation, driven by deregulation, the adoption of AI, and shifting corporate priorities. Drawing on decades of experience placing talent across the Fortune 1000, Am Law 200, and global legal service providers, these are TRU’s top 10 predictions for the trends that will shape hiring, compensation, and workforce dynamics in the coming year. From explosive demand for e-discovery contractors to the rise of AI governance roles and the expanding scope of legal operations, these insights will prepare professionals and employers alike for what lies ahead:

1. U.S. deregulation will increase global litigation.

New federal administration in the U.S. will usher in deregulation, shifting corporate legal spend toward innovation and litigation instead of compliance risk mitigation. Litigation in the private sector will increase meaningfully—particularly in IP, patent and trademark infringement, and antitrust. Compliance programs and privacy programs whose primary focus is compliance may struggle to get head count and budget relative to corporate investment in AI and generative AI that promises to accelerate business growth. Privacy leaders who own AI governance should position their value as business impact, and helping avoid a missed opportunity, with a keen focus on the risks associated with litigation rather than increased regulation. Additionally, privacy niche expertise in ad tech/mar tech will likely see increased opportunity and compensation for their specialized skillsets, which are likely to be harnessed with more fervor in a deregulated economic environment.

2. E-discovery contract job opportunities will skyrocket in 2025.

E-discovery vendors and consulting firms have been running lean on talent for more than two years. In 2024, for the first time in 10 years, TRU tracked more offers accepted at law firms and corporate legal departments than service providers and vendors for e-discovery professionals. Additionally, for the first time since 2019, the service providers in e-discovery hired primarily full-time direct hire resources over contractors. As litigation spikes in a deregulated economy, e-discovery service providers will scale with contract resources for big projects to keep perpetual full-time head count as minimal as possible. Consistent EBITDA growth will become more important than ever for any e-discovery provider that seeks an exit in the next two to three years. Contractors keep costs contained and are reported differently to investors than full-time direct hire resources.

3. Adoption of AI in ESI will accelerate talent growth.

AI skills specifically related to review for discovery will be meaningfully harnessed by professionals working within law firms, vendors and corporations in 2025. Staff attorneys with deep technical chops will be the ripest contenders for vertical and financial mobility by learning and wielding AI products. Relativity aiR will develop market dominance as adoption increases proportionally to existing RelativityOne subscribers. ESI pros (attorney and non-attorney) would be wise to amass hearty hands-on experience developing workflows, training LLMs, and becoming masters of prompting, which may be required for future professional growth in the e-discovery landscape circa 2026 and beyond.

4. AI governance role definition will lead to compensation clarity.

Increased AI governance job opportunities will help employers more clearly define roles, responsibilities, and ultimately more appropriate compensation bands to retain or attract qualified candidates for AI governance positions. Some jobs will require dual-disciplined privacy and AI governance skillsets. Other employers will programmatically bifurcate privacy from AI governance. Currently, the median salary for specialized AI governance jobs is between 5% and 42% less than what most privacy professionals with the skillsets needed for those AI governance jobs are already making. The current lack of community consensus on role definition and appropriate compensation has made it challenging for employers to fill AI governance positions successfully. Increased corporate investment in innovation in 2025 could lead to higher salaries for AI governance positions that surpass traditional data privacy salary bands for professionals with dual skillsets.

5. Hiring privacy contractors will remain the primary modality for acquiring privacy talent in the first half of 2025.

In 2025, program leaders who own privacy and AI governance will begin transferring knowledge and skills in AI governance to their immediate direct reports. Those deputies will in turn begin transitioning responsibilities in privacy to subordinates. Ultimately, more and more commoditized privacy tasks will be left without a handler. These tasks may include PIAs, DPIAs, ROPA, contract and policy updating, privacy incident response, breach review and notification, software implementation and customization, and more. These tactical and technical skills often only require fractional support, and privacy leaders will turn to contract resources to supplement a lack of bandwidth. This trend will be exacerbated by the broad availability of a well-skilled, affordable contract workforce in data privacy—in contrast to an extreme lack of seasoned and cost-effective available contract talent in the AI governance space.

6. Individual innovators will reshape corporate legal buying habits.

Corporate legal departments will reconsider and realign outside counsel spend in 2025. Corporate legal departments will look for outside counsel that can balance cost with expertise and innovation, and studies show (see "What Today’s Rainmakers Do Differently," Harvard Business Review) buying loyalties will be aligned with individuals rather than brands. Articulating value beyond historical firmwide reputation will be crucial for individual partners at outside counsel to maintain and grow a book of business. In late 2024 in e-discovery, partners from Sidley and King & Spalding joined more specialized firms Redgrave and Hilgers, and brought major Fortune 500 companies with them. Discovery partners—as well as AI, cyber, and data protection partners—are no longer just servicing the clients of litigators and partners from other practice groups within their firms. They are now the rainmakers. In 2025, individual reputations—particularly those of innovators—will be pivotal in shaping where legal business is directed by corporate counsel.

7. Law firms/ALSPs will focus on hiring more attorneys for ESI and AI roles.

The last two quarters of 2024 signaled a shift in law firm and vendor hiring practices toward requiring a J.D., often with bar admission, as mandatory for positions that had previously been lawyer-agnostic. Expect this trend to continue as a direct result of shifting pricing models related to how AI impacts efficiency or elevates niche expertise when providing service to corporate legal departments. As AI empowers corporate legal departments to demand greater operational and administrative efficiencies and cost reductions from their outside counsel and service providers, AI will also create an opportunity for those who are experts to command a premium hourly rate. Lawyers bill at higher rates than nonlawyers. Law firms and service providers are going to look to maximize their billing opportunities by putting lawyers in positions that require and breed AI expertise or whose expertise replaces previous billing models that require less human effort.

8. IT/cybersecurity will increasingly own privacy and information governance.  

In 2023 and 2024, privacy and information governance programs received far less budget and human capital headcount than IT and cybersecurity. As regulatory and legal risk (except for litigation risk) takes a back seat to business opportunity over the next several years, privacy and information governance programs may find themselves growing operationally under the leadership of security and IT. This may be beneficial to some programs whose current reporting structures are in legal and continue to struggle for funding. While this shift may increase resource allocation, it may also result in cultural dissonance and managerial redundancy. As reporting structures realign, expect attrition resulting from change.

9. Executive-level opportunities will continue to be scarce.

Despite a generally positive response from Wall Street since the November U.S. election results, corporations will be cautious about spending top dollar for top talent in the first two quarters of 2025. Organizations learned lessons from the years following the pandemic where salaries skyrocketed in concert with the volume of opportunity available as the job market recalibrated post-COVID. Expect companies to give raises and bonuses to retain top talent rather than create new opportunities for executives within organizations who still have a sense of uncertainty about the future economic outlook. Having the right talent representation as well as being an early applicant will give executive job seekers significant competitive advantage. References, referrals, and trusted recommendations may carry just as much if not more weight in hiring decisions for executives than skills and experience in early 2025.

10. Legal operations expands scope but not necessarily staff.

The scope of responsibility that encompass in-house corporate legal operations roles will continue to expand in 2025 driven by adoption of AI technology; however, the number of jobs available for people in legal operations in corporate America or the Am Law 200 will likely stay the same. Growth in this area of legal technology is more likely to impact the individuals already in the space than it is to expand to include more individuals as part of the community. Job seekers interested in a career exclusive to legal operations would be wise to seek opportunities tangential to legal operations (paralegal, legal assistant/secretary, contract analysts, etc.) where they can fractionally participate in some of the responsibilities of traditional legal operations professionals. Turnover will drive most new opportunities in legal operations as opposed to newly created jobs for the first half of 2025. Exceptions would include legal operations departments that have successfully helped end customers expand and grow business as opposed to simply create greater efficiencies with existing revenue streams. Successful integration of AI will be a cornerstone for law firms, corporations, or providers hiring add-to-staff legal operations professionals in 2025.

Jared Coseglia, founder and CEO of TRU Staffing Partners, is an expert in global legal job markets with a specialization in AI governance, cybersecurity, data privacy and e-discovery. TRU represents tens of thousands of legal technology professionals and thousands of companies searching for talent in these verticals.

Originally published in Legaltech News