Hiring in Legal: Guide and Trends in 2026

Dynamic Legal hiring landscape with changing team structures and skill demands

Vietnam’s Legal industry displayed tremendous resilience, prudence and adaptability in 2025. Much attention went to the reduction of headcounts, the need for counsels who are real business partners and as in many other roles: the adoption of AI. The latest leading to the proliferation of drafting, contract review and research tools in many legal workflows. Businesses approached hiring and workforce management with a keener eye on costs, and this was reflected in slower headcount growth and an uneven rise in salaries.

“Employers rebalanced budgets, with a larger portion of spend going towards 1) strategic advisory, meaning less people but more expert, working directly with the senior leadership or integrating the counsel within the management and 2) tech-savy talents. They tightened role definitions and also turned more to contract or interim talent to meet project needs” recounts Estelle Palandijan, Senior Consultant at Robert Walters Vietnam.

Although hiring was still active for senior-level talent, candidates had to demonstrate hybrid skill expertise in legal and a thorough commercial understanding to make a difference.

Across all levels, there was increased demand for business partnering and of course, tech and AI literacy adapted on their daily work.

Overall, the industry still enjoyed a dynamic hiring landscape with in particular, there was an interesting increase for regional legal roles based in Vietnam for local talents.

Read on to find out more about the labour market and hiring trends for Vietnam’s Legal professionals in 2026..

More diverse employment models, team structures and skillsets

Current market trends are expected to continue as the industry heads into 2026.

Increasingly, teams will be made up of a more diverse mix of permanent employees and contract specialists. Businesses will create more short-term, project-based roles for work around implementation of data privacy regulations, AI governance and other automated tools and systems for legal teams to raise independent and quick solution minds cross-functions.

This blending extends to location strategies as well. In the year ahead, Estelle says that there will be more local talents working with regional hubs. By having local counsel for regional offices or on regional scope, businesses stand to access talent at slightly lower costs, all while keeping strategic roles local. Vietnamese legal talents have demonstrated a high level of complex regulatory framework understanding that regional offices are now in need.

In hiring, practical skills and real experience continue to take precedence over other considerations like prestige diploma or other education background. Candidates with multi-disciplinary expertise have a major advantage as employers look for talent who can handle both legal and understand the business dynamics and strategic deeply. 

Top roles and skills in demand

Across all roles, employers appreciate qualities like business partnering, stakeholders' management and growth and a keen commercial mind. 

Senior in-house counsel with legal tech and AI governance experience will be particularly in demand. These professionals will be expected to provide sound legal advice also on AI oversight to mitigate risks of such for the business.

“We are talking about senior technicians who can implement, optimise and govern tools, reducing business spend on outside counsel and therefore the workloads for legal teams.”

As data privacy and sectoral regulation frameworks are getting more complex, demand will remain high for Compliance and Data Privacy experts who can advise on cross-border data flows and AI compliance.

Keeping up against automation and AI 

Within the legal industry, tasks that adhere to a standardised format or workflow are at greater risk of integration with AI. Document and routine litigation reviews, for example, can be taken over by automated workflows. Junior drafting or paraphrasing tasks that produce standard form letters and basic contract redlines, too, keep to consistent patterns and templates. These technologies can also handle basic legal research roles predominantly focused on literature retrieval.

However, firm and legal teams need legal talents with critical mindset, who can not only draft, but tailor contracts for the need of the business or clients. Where AI is providing generic base, there is an imminent need to review and rewrite to deliver professional legal response. Then, Estelle suggests providing value in areas that require context, ethics and commercial judgement. Specific skill sets include strategic advisory, negotiation, risk-based judgment, and client counselling.

Finally, legal professionals can gain a stronger footing in the industry by carving out a niche. Some emerging areas of expertise to consider are data privacy, AI governance, ESG, regulatory investigations and cross-border compliance.

Go beyond pay to attract talent 

Generic roles hold less appeal for candidates, who are more willing to move for opportunities that present an upgrade on other counts.

Roles that require niche skills will come with a heftier price tag. Candidates who can fill these positions will also be after regional scopes, so hiring teams should aim to meet expectations on both counts.

While pay remains a motivating factor, the chance to work with sustainable product lines, modern technologies or to grow to a senior management role are bigger pull factors. Investments into upskilling and the right technical stack therefore support talent attraction and retention rates in the long run.

Flexible work arrangements are also a huge draw. This is especially so for professionals in Ho Chi Minh City, who face longer commute times as they are priced out of real estate within the city center. Companies that offer flexibility thus help foster a greater sense of trust and well-being among employees. 

Career progression as mentioned is another key motivation for job movers. This tendency is most evident among an emerging pattern in the job market.

Experienced legal counsels are now more open to taking on interim or contract roles, even outside their background sector, as long as it offers them exposure to a new industry  especially in technology. This underscores candidates’ desire to advance their careers.

Lastly, Estelle advises streamlining recruitment as candidates tend to drop out of lengthy hiring processes.

Standard rise in salaries

In 2026, salaries will rise modestly, hovering around inflation rates. 

However, select roles will command higher increments. This includes senior in-house positions, South East Asia hub roles and regional specialists. 

Find out more 

Request access to our 2026 Salary Survey to benchmark salaries and to find out more about key hiring trends in Vietnam.