The new competitive edge for legal teams is no longer just technical. It lies in the combination of hard skills, soft skills and AI.

For a long time, the legal differentiator seemed simple: whoever mastered the technical side best came out ahead. And technical expertise remains indispensable. No one builds a sound decision, a solid contract, a strong argument or a good strategy without a firm legal foundation. The point is that, on its own, this no longer sustains a competitive edge for very long. The market has changed, client expectations have changed, and the way the value of legal work is perceived has changed too. Today, the differentiator no longer comes from technical depth alone. It comes from the combination of hard skills, soft skills and fluency in the use of AI.¹

This becomes clearer when the conversation rises to a higher level. In 2026, Thomson Reuters revealed a significant gap between how GCs view the value of legal work and how the rest of the C-level sees it: 86% of GCs said the legal department makes a significant contribution to business success, but only 17% of the rest of the C-suite agreed.² The message here is important: it is not enough for legal to be technically excellent. It must turn competence into impact that is visible to the business.²

That is why hard skills, on their own, have become a prerequisite rather than a differentiator. Hard skills remain everything that underpins legal delivery: technical reading, interpreting regulations, structuring contracts, regulatory awareness, legal reasoning, consistency in analysis and command of risk. Without this, there is no serious legal work. But it is from here that the difference begins between those who merely deliver legal work and those who genuinely create value. Because technical expertise addresses "what the law says," but on its own it does not always address "what the business needs to decide right now."²

This is where soft skills come in. And not as résumé decoration. They come in as the real ability to take legal work off the page and onto the decision-making table. Clear communication, adaptability, curiosity, leadership, collaboration and business acumen have ceased to be secondary attributes. Thomson Reuters itself has been highlighting that, for younger professionals, skills such as adaptability, creativity, leadership, curiosity and technological fluency are gaining weight precisely because work is no longer measured only by output volume and has come to be measured by the ability to use every available resource to deliver a better result.³

In corporate legal, this is even more evident. Another piece from Thomson Reuters draws attention to a simple but very powerful point: legal teams need to learn to communicate through the lens of the business. Instead of speaking only in terms of risk, process or legal opinion, they need to show how they accelerate sales, enable operations, protect revenue, reduce friction and help the company make better decisions. When this does not come through, the value of legal remains invisible, even when the work is technically excellent.⁴

But there is a third layer that has changed the game for good: AI.

And here, for me, lies the most important shift. AI has not replaced technical expertise. Nor has it replaced relationships, judgment or communication. What it has done is change the relative weight of each competency. Because when technology accelerates research, organizing information, comparing documents, drafting initial text and other repetitive tasks, a professional's value no longer rests solely on execution. It rests far more on the quality of the filter, the decision, the prioritization and the strategic reading.⁴

That is why the lawyer poised to gain ground now is neither the one who only knows the law nor the one who only knows how to use the tools. It is the one who brings the two together and can also translate that into business delivery. In 2026, Wolters Kluwer showed that 75% of corporate legal departments and 66% of law firms already consider technological expertise important or very important. The same survey shows that professional development opportunities (69%) and investment in advanced legal technologies (66%) already weigh directly on attracting and retaining talent.⁵ This shows that technological fluency is no longer a "plus." It has become part of the competitive baseline.⁵

But there is an important caveat here: fluency in AI is not the same as knowing how to open a tool and ask for a summary. Thomson Reuters itself now makes a relevant distinction between AI literacy and AI fluency. Knowing the basics is one thing. Knowing how to use this technology strategically, with judgment, with clear expectations, with a reading of risk and with a connection to business goals is another. It is this second layer that begins to separate mature operations from improvised use.⁴

What truly changes the game is the sum: a strong technical foundation, the ability to engage with the business, and intelligent use of technology to gain scale without losing quality.

And there is one more point the market has already begun to make clear: clients no longer want only legal excellence in the traditional sense. According to Wolters Kluwer, 54% of clients already expect their legal partners to be competent in AI and to use this technology responsibly.⁶ In other words, external expectations have changed too. It is not enough to be technically reliable. You need to be technically reliable, efficient, transparent and mature in your use of technology.⁶

At its core, the new competitive edge for legal teams is not about choosing between technical expertise, behavior or technology. It lies in combining all three.

Because the market continues to reward those who know the law. But it is beginning to reward even more those who can turn that knowledge into better decisions, better communication and smarter execution.

That is where technical expertise stops being mere depth and starts becoming impact.

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