Lawyers Need to Stop Thinking Small About GRC: An Interview with Carole Switzer

Key Takeaways

• Strategic leadership: Lawyers are uniquely positioned to lead on governance, risk, and compliance, not just react to it.
• Integrated GRC roadmap: Aligning legal judgment with culture, objectives, and strategy creates more resilient organizations.
• Translation to action: Lawyers who can turn complex rules into clear, practical guidance have outsized impact.
• Emerging risks: AI, climate, cybersecurity, and global regulations demand a wider lens than legal precedent alone.
• Career growth: Embracing GRC thinking expands influence, credibility, and leadership opportunities.

Deep Dive

When Carole Switzer talks about lawyers and their role in governance, risk, and compliance, she doesn’t sound like someone reading off a checklist. She sounds more like a coach urging a team to play the bigger game.

“The lawyers who stand out,” she says, “aren’t the ones waiting to be asked, ‘Is this legal?’ They’re the ones already asking whether a decision fits the company’s strategy, whether it strengthens the culture, whether it prepares the business for what’s coming next.”

It’s a perspective she’s seen reinforced time and again, and it’s what drove her to write MasteringGRC: The Lawyer’s Guide to Success in Governance, Risk, and Compliance. Too many talented attorneys, in her view, get stuck in the role of compliance checker or risk preventer, never realizing they’re uniquely positioned to lead.

“Lawyers already sit at the crossroads of rules, ethics, and decision-making,” she explains. “The real challenge is having the confidence to step into that role with intention.”

That shift, stepping out of a reactive posture and into strategic leadership, is the book’s central theme. For Switzer, being technically correct has never been enough. Businesses don’t just need to know what the law says, they need guidance on what to do next. That requires lawyers to become translators, turning dense regulatory language into decisions that executives can act on. And it requires them to communicate in ways that move beyond legalese, anchoring governance and compliance as part of an organization’s DNA rather than an afterthought.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, climate risks, shifting cross-border rules demonstrate how the landscape isn’t just changing, it’s accelerating.

Switzer is blunt about what that means, “Uncertainty is everywhere. Ifyou’re waiting until someone hands you a neat, packaged problem to solve, you’re already behind.”

That doesn’t mean lawyers must suddenly become experts in machine learning models or carbon accounting. What it does mean is broadening their lens, learning to balance ethical duties with business realities, and building resilience in organizations where risks evolve daily.For Switzer, the lawyers who will thrive in this environment are those who think of GRC not as a checklist of obligations but as a discipline that links strategy, culture, and foresight.

And there’s a personal dimension here too.This isn’t just about what lawyers can do for their organizations, it’s about what embracing GRC can do for their careers. Switzer sees it as a chance for lawyers to redefine themselves, to move from problem-solvers to trusted partners shaping the future of their companies.

“This is about more than risk avoidance,” she says. “It’s about building careers that matter.”

In that sense, Mastering GRCis both a guide and a call to action. It urges lawyers to stop thinking small, to recognize that their skills place them at the heart of strategy, not just the margins of compliance. The future, Switzer insists, belongs to the organizations whose lawyers aren’t just advisors, but leaders.

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