86% of GCs say legal contributes significantly. Only 17% of the C-suite agrees. A new TRI video series unpacks the gap and what GCs are doing about it.
Any time a stat like “86% of GCs say X” gets quoted around, it’s worth asking: who did they actually talk to? That’s the question this next video in the series answers directly.
Toni Taylor of the Thomson Reuters Institute walks through the research behind the 2026 State of the Corporate Law Department report — not just the headline findings, but who was interviewed, how the sample was built across in-house lawyers and C-suite executives, and why that mix matters for reading the results correctly.
It’s a short watch, but a useful one if you’re the kind of reader who wants to know how the sausage gets made before trusting the numbers. Knowing the report pulled from both sides of the aisle — legal leaders and the executives they report to — is part of why the 86/17 gap lands as more than just a legal department complaining about being underappreciated. Both groups were asked, separately, and the answers didn’t match.
If you’re building your own case internally, that methodology detail is worth citing too. It’s a lot easier to get buy-in on “here’s a documented perception gap” than “here’s how I personally feel underappreciated.”
Catch the rest of the videos in this series here.
2026 State of the Corporate Law Department Report
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