The Under‑Utilised Risk-Minded Generalist.
Boards fixate on risk and judgment, yet consistently underuse lawyers uniquely equipped to challenge, synthesise and decide at the sharp end.
Let’s begin with a reality check. Some lawyers are business leaders and will bring relevant experiences to a board, and some are not. Some are cross-functional and strategic-minded, and some are not. Some have been in the room with the board and solved commercial challenges… one could go on. No different to CFOs, or another other functional leaders and professionals. On the assumption that we can already rule out the pure technicians, purely on percentages, the UK boardroom must still be ruling out huge swathes of highly accomplished and board-ready senior practitioners.
That lawyers are sidelined from boards is, on the face of it, paradoxical. Corporate Britain is drowning in risk: cyber‑attacks, disrupted supply chains, regulation/deregulation, geopolitical shocks, tariffs, activist investors, activist campaigners, climate reporting, and multi‑jurisdictional litigation to name a few. Lawyers may have played a central role in protecting a business from many of these things. McKinsey’s December 2025 board report on how boards can evolve highlighted all of these as key themes shaping 2026.
Take data and AI. One NED highlighted that “Boards are opining on complex risk issues such as data, AI and security yet many existing NEDs have limited understanding of these issues. I’ve seen Boards sign off on complex digital or cyber strategies barely asking any questions. When things go wrong the ExCo or advisors are blamed but it was the Board that didn’t kick the tyres. People aren’t sure what to ask. Even non-expert lawyers can be really good at simply asking the difficult questions.”
In this context, legal training ought to be a strategic advantage. Lawyers specialise in pattern recognition, seeing the unseen, and in synthesising vast quantities of material quickly. They have lived through crises, from ransomware attacks to regulatory meltdowns, and many have been the last person in the room before a CEO signs a consequential corporate transaction.
One FTSE100 NED noted that “Experience as a corporate lawyer gives me some degree of knowledge of every risk I’ve seen in the boardroom, and almost every growth opportunity. Whether it be potential merger, cyber risks, data privacy headaches, senior leadership departures, post-listing clean-up, changes in the board, taking on debt, anything transactional, or brand and reputation issues. We’re not stuck in detail, our job is to pull out the key points. We’re surprisingly good at advising on “what are the risks of us selling this asset”.
Yet boards still treat the legal skillset narrowly. As one former FTSE 100 chair sighed, “People say: if I want legal advice, I hire a lawyer. But they don’t apply that logic to finance. There are many easy tropes about lawyers on boards but it doesn’t stack up against the experiences they actually bring.” Another, equally puzzled, observed that while risk now dominates audit agendas, “lawyers aren’t even considered for audit committee roles. It’s bizarre. A chair normally won’t take someone unless they know which committee they’ll be able to chair. For lawyers, that’s already often a dead end.”
Another FTSE100 NED was more specific on risk in the audit committee “As risk is a focus area, I find it odd that more lawyers aren’t used on boards. I sit on several audit committees and in my view risk can sometimes be the more challenging and debate-worthy subject matter. Much of the accounting load is handled by the auditors and finance team. Risk is a complex commercial and strategic area of debate on my boards. Former lawyers are really strong here, particularly those who have operated at ExCo level. Perhaps as we see more standalone risk committees this might be a natural home for former lawyers. Although as ever this comes down to peoples’ specific experiences rather than just a risk skillset.”
The net effect is a curious under‑utilisation of a profession trained, and often experienced in, precisely in the things modern boards claim to value: analytical clarity, judgment, risk balance, governance fluency, and the ability to ask uncomfortable but essential questions.
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