The Business Lawyer in the Age of AI: Between Legal Expertise and Strategic Understanding (P)

Opinion by Ioana Hategan, LLM (De), EMBA (Bocconi University), Managing Partner/M&A and PE Leader

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming traditional professions, and the legal field is no exception. AI platforms are increasingly capable of searching, synthesizing, and structuring legal information—tasks that, until recently, defined the value brought by a lawyer.

This evolution raises a fundamental question: what is the added value that a business lawyer can still offer corporate clients today?

Twenty-six years ago, at the beginning of my career, a lawyer’s value used to lay in the ability to identify legal grounds, build strong legal arguments, and synthesize information effectively. Today, many of these skills can be partially or even entirely automated by AI tools.

More and more companies I have worked with in recent years have explicitly told us: they want lawyers who not only know the law but also understand business. Without this contextual understanding, legal advice risks remaining isolated, disconnected, abstract, and often irrelevant to real organizational decision-making.

This realization led me to invest in an Executive MBA. I was admitted 2 years ago to SDA Bocconi in Milan, Italy—ranked among the top three business schools in the world (Financial Times, three years in a row)—and I attended the EMBA program for the past two years. A program designed to prepare leaders—future CEOs—who acquire a transversal understanding of an organization and make decisions with systemic impact.

I was the only lawyer in a cohort of 200 managers. This made me ask myself: how willing are we, as lawyers, to put in the effort to understand business thinking? How much do we value this competence as part of our professional future? Are we ready to push beyond our limits to build this interdisciplinary bridge?

I also gained a dual perspective: I came to understand both the limitations we face as legal professionals in relation to business, and the enormous potential our profession holds when those limitations are strategically overcome.

Why do I believe the future of business law is multidisciplinary?

1. In a world dominated by access to information, real value comes from the ability to make connections across domains, not just from accumulating knowledge in a single field.
2. Truly relevant solutions emerge at the intersection of expertise—legal, financial, commercial, operational—and from a deeper understanding of market challenges across industries, regions, and geographies.
3. To genuinely understand not only WHAT a client is asking but WHY, we must have access to their business logic, internal dynamics, and decision-making motivations.

Challenges of this transformation:

1. Revisiting or learning concepts like math, accounting, and financial analysis can be difficult for professionals trained in the humanities, but it is essential to understand the foundation of corporate decision-making.
2. Learning in parallel with practicing an already demanding profession (often while also managing a family) requires discipline, motivation, and clarity of purpose.
3. EMBA team projects force you to see how the legal function fits into a broader business vision. It is a continuous exercise in adaptation and sometimes in redefining your own contribution. It is also a lesson in humility and connection, in working together toward a common goal.

What does an elite EMBA add?

1. It pushes you to overcome mental limits and explore new competencies with immediate applicability.
2. It shifts your perspective: you learn that success is not individual but the result of team collaboration—and even if each member brings a unique contribution, it only gains value when harmonized with others toward a shared objective.
3. You acquire essential intercultural skills in an international environment where differences become resources.
4. You form authentic, deep, and lasting connections—much stronger than any formal networking attempt.
5. You learn that real value lies in contributing meaningfully, in a way that directly serves business needs—not in delivering abstract legal solutions.

I believe that in business law, being valuable in the future means more than mastering legal language or English. It means understanding the ‘language of business’—how organizations function, how decisions are made, and how risks and opportunities are assessed.

For that, effort is required. But effort is the price we pay to remain relevant in a deeply transforming profession. It is also the price we pay to create added value for the companies we support—value that is recognized by our clients because it is truly connected to their real needs.