Our partner Robert Leuthner has been interviewed in the course of his work as a lecturer at the Management Center Innsbruck.

What was your professional carrer like and what inspired you to work in your current field?

From 1994 to 1997 associate at Preslmayr & Partner, after graduating from Columbia Law School associate at Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld and CMS Strommer Reich-Rohrwig, partner at Hausmaninger Herbst and Haarmann Hügel (bpv Hügel) and monlaw, since 2017 founding partner of Weisenheimer Legal.

I gradually entered my current professional field (corporate finance advice for start-ups and SMEs). First, due to my specialization at Columbia, through my work at CHSH in capital markets law, then, due to the lack of a sufficiently active capital market in AT, focusing on early stage financing.

Is there a professional experience or project you are particularly proud of?

The IPO of phion AG, in which I played a leading legal role.

How do you see the future of business administration and commercial law, and what skills do you think will be most in demand in the coming years?

Especially the technical aspects (research, drafting documents or contracts) will be completely taken over by AI in the forseeable future. Traditional drafting and clerical work will disappear. However, AI will take a little longer to replace the lawyer beacuase AI cannot (yet) handle the strategic decisions and the social component in every legal interaction.

What advice would you give to students considering a career in your field?

Before deciding on a particular career path, think very carefully about how AI will affect that profession in the next twenty years.