Six days after its legal chief's memo, Disney advertised for a director to bring AI into legal work, one who codes with tools such as Claude Code.
In a memo reported by Deadline, Disney's legal chief, Horacio Gutierrez, told the company's Legal and Global Affairs department, just under 1,000 people worldwide, that it will end up much smaller and that some of its staff will be personally affected.
The memo, sent on September 18, never uses the words AI or layoffs. Gutierrez writes that technology is changing how legal, government affairs and operations work gets done, and that he is reviewing every part of the department to make it more efficient and cheaper to run. For different kinds of work he lists options rather than decisions: automating some workflows with the latest technology, self-service, alternative legal providers, expanded shared services and outsourcing.
According to the job listing, posted on September 24, the new director would redesign the department's workflows and build AI systems that review contracts, research the law and help with compliance and regulatory analysis. The listing asks for hands-on experience building software with AI coding assistants, naming Claude Code, Cursor and GitHub Copilot.
Disney cut jobs in April and July, and executives said on the August 5 earnings call that more cuts were coming. Deadline reported on September 25 that staff across the company were bracing for layoffs that could start as early as the following week, though its sources said the legal department's cuts were not connected to that round.
The memo does not say how many jobs will go, and Disney declined to comment to Deadline on the timing or size of the cuts.