Legal and compliance department investment in governance, risk and compliance tools will increase 50% by 2026, according to predictions by Gartner as corporate assurance and integrity leaders seek out technological solutions to help them address increasing regulatory attention on executive risk oversight and monitoring. A separate report by Thomson Reuters underscored the challenges legal and compliance teams are facing: growing workloads and shrinking budgets.
“Recent actions ranging from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to the U.S. Department of Justice signal a focus on executive risk oversight and monitoring,” said Lauren Kornutick, director analyst in the Gartner legal risk and compliance practice. “For example, the DOJ is encouraging companies to voluntarily disclose misconduct, but firms can only do so if they’ve set up effective compliance programs and risk management strategies that leverage controls to prevent and detect misconduct.”
Thomson Reuters’ annual report on corporate general counsels, informed by surveys of legal department operations professionals, found that 70% report an increase in matter volume, while 66% say they’re seeing flat or decreasing budgets.
“Corporate legal departments continue to face challenges in making the up-front investments in…
