The light at the end of the pandemic tunnel may just be a freight train barreling right for the legal profession, according to a massive survey of global general counsel. The report, “The General Counsel Imperative: How Do You Turn Barriers Into Building Blocks?,” includes survey data from GCs and 1,000 other business leaders, primarily CEOs, from 17 industries in 22 countries. Performed in the first two months of 2021, the survey was conducted by EY Law, an affiliate of Ernst & Young Global Ltd. and the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession. David Wilkins, faculty director of the Harvard center, sees an apocalyptic threat to the legal profession. “There is a freight train coming down the tracks,” he says. Cornelius Grossmann, EY Global Law co-leader, told Law360 the survey was a “validation moment.” “More than we even thought,” she says, “the general counsel are feeling the pressure of doing more with less. It’s not a new theme, but now we see the impact of the pandemic, new regulations coming out, more risk and just more to do than ever before.” Wilkins counsels détente between law firms and in-house counsel before it’s too late. “We need collaboration between legal departments and law firms, between legal departments and other providers, between law firms and other providers.,” he says. “There’s been a little bit of the Hatfields and the McCoys between law firms and in-house legal departments. They all say they love each other, but they don’t.”