What legal skills are in demand?
In 2026, law firm and legal department leaders are looking for professionals with the skills to manage complex matters with precision and work confidently in technology-enabled environments. Increasingly, legal employers are seeking professionals who can apply soft skills such as critical thinking and problem solving to their work when using AI tools.
Here are some highlights from Robert Half’s Demand for Skilled Talent report and job posting analysis.
Technical skills employers value most in legal professionals
AI literacy
Compliance
Contract management
eDiscovery
Estate planning
Ethics and corporate governance
Litigation
Mergers and acquisitions
Examples of practice area proficiencies in high demand
Commercial law
Employment and labor law
Intellectual property law
About the Demand for Skilled Talent report
The Demand for Skilled Talent report by Robert Half is an authoritative source providing essential insights into employment trends. This report has offered a deep dive into the U.S. hiring landscape for over a decade, spotlighting challenges and strategies to attract and retain talent. It explores what employees seek in their careers, identifies common recruitment errors and suggests solutions. The report spans finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal, administrative and customer support, and human resources, proving crucial for business leaders and managers.
Methodology
The surveys cited were developed by Robert Half and conducted by an independent research firm. Results may not total 100% due to rounding or allowing for multiple responses. Respondents included executives, hiring managers and workers from small (10-99 employees), midsize (100-999 employees) and large (1,000+ employees) businesses in private, publicly listed and public sector organizations across the U.S.
Over 1.5 million new positions from more than 9,000 independent job boards and company websites are represented in this report, including thousands of placements from Robert Half. Positions are categorized into more than 430 job titles within Robert Half’s Salary Guide using a proprietary mapping methodology that employs state-of-the-art large language models. This dataset includes roles across the finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal, administrative and customer support, non-clinical healthcare, and human resources professions.
