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 adoption of AI, 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 tech and niche, senior-level hires. 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 junior-level talent, candidates had to demonstrate hybrid skill expertise in legal and data or tech, and entry-level pay weakened in some segments. Across all levels, there was increased demand for tech and AI literacy and practical project experience in these areas.

Overall, the industry still enjoyed a dynamic hiring landscape with fluid talent mobility in South East Asia. In particular, there was fierce competition for regional legal roles. 

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, regulatory fixes, mergers and acquisitions and AI governance. 

This blending extends to location strategies as well. In the year ahead, Estelle says that there will be more talent localisation within regional hubs. By placing local counsel in regional offices, businesses stand to access talent at slightly lower costs, all while keeping strategic roles local.

In hiring, practical skills and real experience will take precedence over other considerations like prestige of previous workplaces. Candidates with multi-disciplinary expertise have a major advantage as employers look for talent who can handle both legal and tech-related tasks. 

Top roles and skills in demand

Across all roles, employers appreciate qualities like tech literacy, strong client and stakeholder management, 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 while taking into account AI oversight, vendor contracts, data handling and regulatory risks.

Global privacy and sectoral regulation frameworks are getting more complex. Therefore, demand will be high for compliance and data privacy experts who can advise on cross-border data flows and AI compliance.

There will also be high demand for senior-level legal ops talent. “These are not commoditised paralegals, but rather, senior technicians who can implement, optimise and govern tools, reducing business spend on outside counsel.”

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.

The first step to future-proofing careers in the industry is to understand, document and disclose the use of AI, as the technology is not applicable in all workflows. 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 multi-jurisdictional 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 modern legal tech and gain AI governance experience 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 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 industry, as long as it offers them exposure to tech or regulatory projects. 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. Expertise in AI, governance and data privacy will also fetch stronger packages.

Find out more 

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