SwissLegal – News from our 2025 fall conference

Inspired by Pericles (Athens, 490-429 BC), our Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mauro Lardi, welcomed the participants shortly after 3 p.m. with the quote "It is not important to predict the future, but to be prepared for it!" He then moved on to the conference program, which also covered various facets of future developments that needed to be addressed.

Our Group CEO, Heinrich Spühler, reported on general information about current projects, analyzed efforts in digital marketing, and reported on positive developments in the SwissLegal network, both nationally and internationally—and in doing so, he also revealed the secret behind the renaming of the Preferred Partner Program, which now appears under "THE International Business Law Partners CIRCLE" and has already met with a positive response from the participating partner law firms. Finally, personnel developments within the group were celebrated, with four new lawyers (Noëmi Birchler (SL-Zurich/Schwyz), Fabienne Götz (SL-Chur), Joël Maréchal and Marc Jordan (both SL-Basel) as well as two new partners (Dana Korody-Preston and Sama Bolog (both SL-Basel)) were welcomed to their new roles with warm applause.

The general information section was followed by the eagerly awaited guest presentation by Marco Candinas, lawyer/court clerk and author of the book "AI for Lawyers and Legal Professionals." He gave us a practical demonstration of which AI tools he uses in his everyday work and for which tasks, which information (tokens, characters) are interesting for language models, and how important a well-defined, precise prompt is as input in order to achieve better quality results with the respective AI tool. Attorney Candinas also points out that AI hallucinates and that, despite the greatest possible care, limitation, and validation when prompting, an additional professional review of the result is always necessary and that, nota bene, there are already judgments in Germany in which the court has accused legal representatives of insufficient diligence (failure to check hallucinated facts) and insufficient knowledge in the application of the corresponding AI tool. According to attorney Candinas, these review and validation obligations are good arguments against the feared displacement of lawyers by AI. However, it is already becoming apparent that new workflows will have to be implemented and that this will also have a clear impact on law firm organization, the establishment of internal guidelines for dealing with AI, and compliance with data protection and attorney-client privilege obligations.

Last but not least, there were once again three exciting workshops to choose from, which promoted internal exchange on the following topics:

• Focus on real estate: Attorneys Angela Decristophoris, Clarissa Indemini, and Corinne Engel highlighted, among other things, the consequences that purchasing real estate during cohabitation or before and after marriage can have for the respective partners in the event of separation/divorce, and how this can be preventively regulated through clear contractual relationships.
  
• The law firm of tomorrow: In her workshop, attorney Sama Bolog explored the question of what the everyday work of lawyers will look like in the future, how law firms will organize themselves, and what challenges will arise when clients visit the law firm with AI-supported preliminary clarifications (similar to "Dr. Google" before visiting the doctor). Finally, expectation management was also discussed, both internally and on the part of clients.
  
• Cyber security: Attorneys Martin Frey and Heinrich Spühler reminded participants of the importance of regularly reviewing TOMs, training staff and processes in advance, and simulating data loss. The aim is to be optimally prepared. This also includes having the good old emergency note physically at hand. 

After the work was done, the focus was on a cozy get-together: a joint dinner with a direct view of Kloten Airport provided a fitting end to an exciting day of lively discussions and personal networking.

Many thanks to all colleagues and workshop speakers for their active participation and conference preparations, as well as to the Radisson BLU team for their impeccable support of our event!

SwissLegal – Guiding you to success