GC Corner: An interview with Laura Todd

Laura Todd is Legal Director at Utility Warehouse, with a broad generalist practice and a focus on innovation and the use of AI within legal teams. She trained at Clyde & Co and has held in-house roles at Interserve PLC and AWE PLC. She is also a mum of three and was recently named Returner of the Year at the Women and Diversity in Law Awards 2026.

What’s the biggest pressure point or priority you face as a legal leader today?

As a society we’ve become very used to immediacy – whether its through instant responses to Whatsapp and Teams/ Slack messages or the instant gratification you get from likes on a social media post. That expectation is increasingly carrying through into the workplace, with an assumption that legal advice should be available instantly and on demand.

The challenge with this is that good legal judgment still requires space and freedom to think.  Without that space, there’s a risk that speed starts to come at the expense of quality thinking.

You then add in the fact that AI is accelerating those expectations further. Stakeholders can drop a question into ChatGPT or Gemini for an initial view before they’ve even knocked on Legal’s door.

I’m very focused on how we respond to this as a team. Part of it is about being more intentional in protecting time for high quality thinking. But equally, it is also about embracing the opportunity that AI presents us. My team and I are continually exploring how we can utilise AI to take on more routine, repetitive and manual tasks so that our lawyers can focus on the areas where they add the most value.

How has your approach to leadership evolved over time?

When I moved into a leadership position, I assumed that I needed to have all the answers to show that I was the most senior lawyer in the room.

Over time, I’ve realised leadership is less about having all of the answers yourself and instead about building a team and environment from which those answers can emerge. My role as a leader is now far more strategic and I have fully embraced surrounding myself with people who are far more knowledgeable than me in their specialist areas!

I truly believe that different perspectives and diversity of thought ultimately leads to better outcomes for the business. My focus as a leader is therefore on creating an environment where those voices can be heard which I think is far more valuable than striving to be the person with all the answers.

You will co-lead a member webinar soon on AI. What should senior in-house counsel, and indeed the legal sector as a whole, have in terms of their mindset to the current disruption?

Lawyers have been trained to place a high value on more traditional technical skills such as drafting and research. It is easy to fall into a mindset that using AI to assist with those things is akin to “cheating”. However, AI isn’t going anywhere, we are moving into a new era and so we need to let go of the way we were trained and what we’ve previously considered good to look like.

In this new era, I think our focus should be on developing lawyers who deeply understand their business, its commercial drivers, strategy and risk appetite and can apply that judgment effectively. Or to give a real-life example, when reviewing contracts I want my lawyers spending their time thinking about the risks and opportunities for the business and then using AI to execute – not spending hours drafting from scratch.

I believe there is an onus on us now as leaders to start shaping and developing our teams for the future. I believe that the lawyers who will thrive in this new world are not necessarily those with the strongest traditional technical skills, but those who have strong commercial awareness, are curious, adaptable and comfortable working alongside technology.

The toughest decision you’ve had to make in the last year?

One of the toughest was taking the decision to move away from our incumbent contract lifecycle management system (or “CLM”).

We had invested a significant amount of time and effort into implementing and adapting a solution over a couple of years and from a legal process perspective it was working fine. However, it wasn’t delivering on what was important to the business – namely the data insights we needed from our contract repository.

As a legal team we had to take a step back and think about what matters most. For our stakeholders, the real value of a contract management system isn’t just about managing the legal workflow, but in providing visibility on their contracts. Being able to see a real-time dashboard that gives them visibility of things like upcoming termination dates, key obligations and commercial insights.

Ultimately that meant moving to a new solution that could better deliver those insights, even though it meant as a team we had to let go of something we had put a lot of work into.

One leadership habit you swear by under pressure?

Staying calm. Ultimately your team take their cue from you. If you transmit the vibe that you are anxious or overwhelmed, it will quickly filter down through your team. I try to be very conscious of the energy I bring to the team, particularly when under pressure.

How do you personally recharge when things get intense?

I love cooking and baking for my family. I find there’s something really grounding for me about following a recipe step by step. I suppose it is a form of mindfulness for me, as it forces me to focus on one thing and properly switch off from everything else.

What’s one wellbeing practice that’s actually stuck for you?

I heard Steven speak last year about high performing teams and one point really stuck with me – that stress can result in growth BUT only if it is balanced with recovery.

This really resonated with me and it’s something I now actively build into my life and in how I lead too. I make an effort to ensure that periods of intensity are followed by time to recover both for myself and for my team.

If you had to give your younger self one tip about building a flourishing legal career what would it be?

It sounds cliché but don’t be afraid to be yourself.

Unfortunately, early in my career I was very self-conscious about not fitting the traditional mould. I’m state school educated, first generation university and grew up in a socially deprived area. I even softened my Brummie accent to try and fit in.

Over time, I came to realise that those are exactly the things that shape how I think, how I communicate and ultimately have shaped me into the lawyer I’ve become.

I wish I could tell my younger self to lean into that sooner.

Best book, podcast or film you’ve discovered recently?

A book called “My Amazing Autistic Brain” by Emily Snape.

It’s a really thoughtful resource for helping young children understand their own experiences of autism and it does a great job of opening up conversations around the diversity within neurodivergence.

One thing your team would be surprised to know about you?

I can’t ride a bike, ice skate or rollerblade. This is because I was a “dance-mad” child and so spent every spare minute in classes, competing, performing or teaching. I had zero interest in any other activities!

I loved nothing more than being on stage – singing and dancing in a musical theatre number which is something people are often quite surprised to hear now!

If you weren’t a lawyer, what would you be doing today?

While I would love to say dancing on the West End, realistically I think I would likely have been a journalist.

During my time at Sheffield Uni, I used to review bands and gigs for various publications and even once had something published in NME!

Your go to guilty pleasure after a long week

Sitting in my garden, with a coffee, croissant and fashion magazine.