The key (though not the only) development in this area is the impending EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to strengthen and unify data protection for individuals within the EU (see Practice note, General Data Protection Regulation: key provisions and what businesses should be doing now).

"The GDPR affects essentially every company handling European data, no matter where it is based, including the export of personal data outside the EU," according to Emily Leach of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (see box, Spotlight on compliance and corporate accountability).

However, the EU GDPR is just part of the picture, says Leach: "China and Russia now have data localization laws, Japan just instituted a new privacy law on 1st January, 2017, and we have more privacy laws emerging at the state level in the USA with each legislative session." According to Leach, 47 states in the USA now have their own data breach notification laws. (See Practical Law Global Guide, Data Protection and Privacy.) "These factors, combined with bigger penalties for violations, have organisations realizing the urgent need to take privacy seriously and put knowledgeable professionals in place to manage it."

When asked what wider geo-political factors they expected to impact the cross-border deal market in 2017, a majority of respondents identified the slowing Chinese economy as a likely negative factor (see box, Geo-political factors impacting cross-border work in 2017).

On 20 January, 2017, China announced that its GDP grew 6.8% on-year in the fourth quarter of 2016, China's slowest annual growth figure in 26 years according to the National Bureau of Statistics (see China posts weakest annual economic growth in 26 years, money.cnn.com, 19 January 2017). Although this was better than predicted (in a Reuters poll, economists forecast 6.7% growth in the fourth quarter of 2016), by historical standards China's growth is slowing down (see China's fourth-quarter growth seen steady at 6.7 percent amid heavy government support, Reuters, 18 January 2017).

A recent report by the IMF predicts that growth will slow further to 6.0% by 2018 (see IMF: A Shifting Global Economic Landscape: Update to the World Economic Outlook (January 2017)).

"The slowdown in China has hit world trade in general, as patients who breathed in the Chinese sneeze pass the germs onto other countries, which then pass it further down the line. Korea's export market looks much less promising because of weakening sales to China," says Andrew McCaffery, global head of alternative investing at Aberdeen Asset Management, one of the UK's biggest investment firms (see Just How Big Is China's Impact On The World Economy?, forbes.com, 14 April 2016). Many analysts have also said that as the Chinese economy slows, more Asian clients are seeking dollar- and euro-denominated assets.

The majority of respondents are anticipating a positive bump to the cross-border deal market from low commodity prices. China is one of the world's biggest commodity consumers and as demand from China declines, so will commodity prices. The fall in commodity prices in 2011 proved catastrophic for Brazil's economy but represented a significant opportunity for some investors.

Are the falling commodity prices bottoming out? Possibly. China National Petroleum Corp said the country's net crude imports will rise 5.3 per cent to 396 million tonnes in 2017, with crude consumption headed for a record 594 million tonnes or 12 million bpd this year (see Oil rises on supply cuts, record China demand forecast, reuters.com, 12 Jan 2017). Brent crude prices have edged up with this news and are already up from to from 2016's 11 year low of $33 a barrel.

According to the World Bank's quarterly Commodities Market Outlook report published in October 2016, prices for commodities other than oil are also forecasted to rise in 2017. It is possible then that commodity prices in 2017 might not be as low as had previously been expected.

Regulatory issues are at the forefront of many bids particularly higher value deals. Obtaining clearances can be time-consuming.

Nick Rumsby, a partner in the corporate group in Linklaters’ London office said "on the bigger deals, we expect that buyers will have to navigate difficult anti-trust processes with national regulators." (See Article, Public M&A: Predictions for 2017.) According to Rumsby: "In addition to anti-trust concerns, public interest considerations are also becoming more relevant in large M&A."

At the end of 2016, Chinese regulators toughened their position on capital outflow after a year of record deals where Chinese companies’ overseas purchases surged past 2015’s record of $121bn for non-financial outbound investments, reaching $146bn over the first 10 months of 2016 (see China to clamp down on outbound M&A in war on capital flight, ft.com, 29 November 2016). There was speculation that regulators were seeking to tame a record deal-making spree that alarmed officials from Washington to Berlin (see China to Curb Megadeals as Regulators Tame Record Overseas Spree, Bloomberg.com, 28 November 2016).

According to Chunshek Chan, Head of M&A Research at Dealogic, whilst this increased regulatory scrutiny seems onerous, the impact might be smaller than most expect. "We will not see blockbuster deals as we did last year like the ChemChina and Syngenta deal," he said. "Any deals above US$1bn outside of a buyer's core industry will be heavily scrutinised by regulators, but most Chinese outbound deals do not happen in that space, they happen in the sub US$1bn space in manufacturing, so the volume [of deals] will come down a bit but the amount of activity will continue." (see M&A Outlook for 2017, dealogic.com).

According to the Institute for Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances, 2015 was a record year for merger and acquisition activity, as global values for deals hit their highest values since 2007 (see Number & Value of M&A Worldwide, imaa.org).

A report by Mergermarket highlighted that global M&A activity in 2016 managed to reach its third highest deal value since 2007 despite value dropping 18.1% with 670 fewer deals announced as compared to 2015 (see Mergermarket: 2016 Global M&A Report Press Release (4 January 2017)).

While respondents were nervous about the impact of geo-political changes, they were still optimistic about the deal outlook for 2017 (see box, How do you think cross-border deal volume and value in 2017 will compare with 2016?).

The billable hour has long been a bone of contention between lawyers and their clients, with the American Bar Association describing it as "the lawyer's measure of cost, not necessarily a measure of the value he or she is providing the clients in their legal needs." (See Marketing Alternative Fee Arrangements, americanbar.org.)

There are various alternatives in the market, ranging from retrospective arrangements based on value where fees are determined by the firm at the conclusion of the matter based on client objectives as defined at the outset, to fixed or flat fees where a client engages a law firm to provide a specific service for a set price.

"There is escalating pressure on legal firms to provide clients with better value and to prove constantly that they are worth the investment," according to Paresh Khushal, Head of Professionals for Thomson Reuters, Middle East & North Africa.

"This puts law firms in a position where they need to be as transparent as possible about costs, and pressures them to offer a high-quality service at a more competitive price. In many cases, this means rethinking the traditional per hour billing model."

A related development is the focus by a number of organisations on how they distribute work internally and externally (see box, How likely is your organisation to explore new sourcing approaches in 2017?).

Some organisations, such as BT, are redistributing work within their own in-house departments and growing in-house teams (see BT: the most innovative in-house team in the FTSE 100, thelawyer.com, 8 February 2016 (requires registration)). Others have created captive outsourcing centres (see Article, Inside Life, Richard Tapp Carillion plc).

It appears that this trend will continue as the majority of respondents expected to see a change in the proportion of legal work handled internally and externally by their organisation.

In 2012 Jody Greenstone Miller and Matt Miller wrote an article that appeared in the Harvard Business Review about the rise of workers they called "supertemps".

Supertemps were "top managers and professionals, from lawyers to CFOs to consultants, who've been trained at top schools and companies and choose to pursue project-based careers independent of any major firm" (see The Rise of the Supertemp, hbr.org, May 2012).

In the legal world the equivalent is 'flexible legal resource': contract lawyers who work independently on cases or deals on a contract basis, moving from one project to another.

Many major international firms have established their offerings in this area in the past three years, including Allen & Overy with Peerpoint, Eversheds with Agile and Addleshaw Goddard with AG Integrate. And yet, only 32% of respondents said their organisations were likely to explore the use of contract lawyers this year (see box, What alternatives will you look at?).

The marriage of technology and legal services has been a topic of ever increasing interest in recent years with artificial intelligence (AI) often being at the forefront of the conversation. Deloitte predicted that up to 114,000 jobs in the legal sector stand to be automated (see Developing legal talent: Stepping into the future law firm, deloitte.com, February 2016).

IT law expert Richard Kemp of Kemp IT law expects lawyers to see an increase in AI projects in 2017 (see Article, Trends in information technology law: looking ahead to 2017).

However, despite this excitement, only 40% of respondents thought AI would be important for their organisation in 2017, telling us that AI is not a top priority for legal practitioners this year (see box, What technologies will be important for your organisation in 2017?). Are we all in denial?

The drive to maximise profitability and efficiency has created a demand for lawyers with project management skills in recent years; it is no surprise that the best lawyers know how to get the best outcome for their clients whilst staying within budget and delivering on time.

It seems that these hybrid legal project manager roles will continue to develop as 83% of respondents expect process and project management skills to be essential for legal teams in 2017.

"All repeat business activity acts through formalised or informal processes," said MacMillan. "The legal team has to contribute to the business, get the business to do things, and run and change itself as a department to meet on-going business need. To do this the legal department must be an effective contributor to other people's processes and projects and good at creating its own – this is much easier to do if you understand how processes and project management actually work."

Macmillan also explained that regulators are increasingly looking to businesses for evidence of the existence of demonstrable, current, effective and efficient processes (including around change) as a means of preventing or mitigating corporate and/or staff personal liability. "So not only is the need for process and project management skills clearly there," he said, "it is becoming ever more important to companies as a whole and to the legal teams within them."

The majority of respondents identified emotional intelligence as a key skill for lawyers in 2017.

According to Kelli Reid, Managing Director at beyondBlackletter, components of emotional intelligence such as empathy, social awareness, general happiness and adaptability significantly influence performance and effectiveness. Emotional success can account for up to 80% of workplace success (see blog post, Tap into your emotional intelligence for in-house success). "Research also shows that lawyers have lower emotional intelligence than the general population, perhaps because, historically, it has been undervalued and largely ignored in favour of established “hard” legal skills."

The World Economic Forum published a report in January 2016 setting out a list of the top ten skills needed by the 2020 workforce (see World Economic Forum: The 10 skills you need to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (19 January 2016)). Emotional intelligence does not feature in the top ten list today but is number six on the list of skills that the 2020 workforce will need.

According to Reid, lawyers should learn more about emotional intelligence and incorporate its core competencies into their skill set. Practitioners who do this can enhance their performance, team effectiveness and organisational impact (see Article, An introduction to emotional intelligence for lawyers).