As the legal risk and compliance environment becomes ever more pressurised, companies are responding by continuing to bring general counsel closer to the heart of the business, and by dedicating increasing resources to legal risk management. However there are signs that general counsel need to do more to respond to the challenge, in particular by defining their roles more clearly, implementing compliance programmes more effectively, and further embedding a compliance culture at board level. William Long analyses the results of the 2008 PLC Law Department benchmarking survey on legal risk and compliance.