Our Managing Partner Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu spoke at the “Emerging Technologies and Law” webinar hosted by the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Association, joining a conversation on how rapidly evolving technologies — from artificial intelligence and blockchain to digital identity — are reshaping the legal profession and the regulatory canvas around them.
The central thesis was clear: technology is no longer a vertical for a few specialist lawyers; it is the connective tissue running through almost every modern legal matter — from corporate transactions and data protection to dispute resolution and intellectual property — and lawyers who do not engage with it will find themselves working with an increasingly incomplete map.
Emerging technologies and the law’s response time
The webinar opened with the perennial gap between technology cycles and legislative cycles. Mümtaz noted that founders move at the speed of product iteration while regulators move at the speed of consultation; the lawyer’s value sits in translating between the two — turning new technology categories into structures that survive both commercial pressure and regulatory scrutiny.
From AI to blockchain — recurring legal patterns
The session unpacked recurring patterns across emerging technology areas: data and consent, intellectual property and authorship, liability and accountability, cross-border jurisdiction, and the design of token and incentive structures. Mümtaz argued that despite the variety of technical substrates, the legal questions cluster around a small set of repeating themes — and that pattern recognition is what makes the practitioner valuable.
The new lawyer profile
Closing the webinar, Mümtaz returned to a theme he has carried into many venues: the modern lawyer is not just a defender of precedent but a designer of structure. Reading product specifications, engaging with technical teams, and understanding how systems actually work has moved from “nice to have” to a baseline professional competence.
