Photo: Michael Bowmile, Stephanie Leung, Arun Krishnamurti
Lexpert and Canadian Lawyer are presenting this year’s Canadian Legal Summit, which spotlights the business of law, innovation, and leadership to help in-house counsel navigate the legal landscape’s unprecedented transformation, rather than focusing on substantive topics as traditional conferences do.
The organizers expect in-house legal professionals, private practitioners, legal tech innovators, and lawyers from solo practices, boutique firms, small and midsize firms, big law firms, and legal teams to attend the Canadian Legal Summit 2025, to be held at the Toronto Event Centre on 15 Saskatchewan Road on Oct. 9.
One among the legal event’s three streams focuses on members of in-house legal teams, including general counsel, in-house advisors, and legal operations professionals.
This stream aims to assist in-house lawyers with higher expectations, greater strategic demands, and rising complexity while dealing with pressures such as business speed, cross-functional relationships, and limited resources.
The in-house stream seeks to suggest client-first approaches, frameworks, strategies, and practical tools for:
- fostering collaboration between law firms and in-house teams
- elevating the legal team’s value
- adapting to risks, including geopolitical, reputational, and regulatory threats
- managing AI issues, such as hallucinations and vendor compliance
- aligning legal services with rapidly evolving needs
- building business fluency
- driving business impacts
- preventing burnout
- improving well-being
- boosting team performance
Participants in the in-house stream can also expect to gain valuable insights on subjects such as:
- AI policy
- compliance
- legal innovation
- talent strategy
- leadership influence
- in-house/outside counsel collaboration
Agenda
Apart from connecting with peers, in-house legal professionals can learn from general counsel and legal executives on how in-house teams can form more thoughtful, sustainable, resilient, high-performing, and tech-savvy legal departments.
The legal event’s offerings for in-house attendees include:
- Panel: How legal leaders are adapting to uncertainty and shaping the future of law
- Crisis counsel: The shifting role of in-house and the future of law firm collaboration
- Fireside panel chat: Breaking the burnout cycle - What needs to change and how do we start?
- Panel: Diverse talent as a competitive advantage: retention, growth, and self-advocacy
- Roundtable discussion: Future GC playbook: Essential skills to build a business mindset
- AI + law: 10 real-world questions you’re not asking (but should)
The more than 70 speakers at the legal event include:
- Michael Bowmile, vice president and general counsel at Coke Canada Bottling
- Arun Krishnamurti, senior counsel at Google Canada
- Stephanie Leung, senior legal counsel at Enbridge
LEAP serves as the event partner. Learn more about the Canadian Legal Summit 2025.