Thomas Söbbing is a German lawyer who has published fundamental works in the fields of digital law and legal issues relating to artificial intelligence, and can look back on 20 years of legal experience in renowned companies. In 2017, he was named ‘Most Influential Lawyer in Business’ by Legal 500.

Söbbing wrote the first book on AI law in German, authored the 1,200-page IT Outsourcing Handbook, and demonstrated how the Nobel Prize-winning contract theory of Hart (Harvard) and Holmström (MIT) can be methodically applied to IT contracts. He is the author of nine specialist books and almost 300 scientific articles, meaning that his publications are cited in several thousand references in the ‘juris’ legal database. He has also lectured at over 400 management seminars and is therefore considered an influential tech lawyer.

Before becoming a professor, Söbbing worked for KPMG (project manager), Siemens (head of legal contract management), Deutsche Leasing (chief legal specialist), CRIF Bürgel (head of legal & compliance) and Solcom (general counsel), where he managed large legal departments with several teams. He oversaw Siemens AG’s highest-revenue contract (approx. €8 billion), conducted negotiations with hundreds of companies, including three-quarters of all DAX-listed corporations, and was thus included in Legal 500’s ‘General Counsel Powerlist’.

He also taught briefly at Oxford, Cambridge and Liechtenstein before accepting a position in Kaiserslautern. Today, he is a professor of civil and digital law with a focus on legal ethics in artificial intelligence, programme director for the Economics & Law (Bachelor’s/Master’s) programmes and responsible for cooperation with the Palatinate Higher Regional Court.

Söbbing declined an appointment as a judge at the Higher Regional Court and now supports the renowned law firm Gabor Partners as Of Counsel. He is also a member of the advisory board of a telecoms spin-off and has worked as a secondee for a multinational banking group, a leading software company and a global fashion label.

As the promotion of young talent is very important to him, he provides pro bono expert opinions for the German National Academic Foundation’s doctoral scholarship programme. He is also on the editorial board of the journal ‘Medien & Recht International’ (Media & Law International), is a member of the permanent team of authors for ‘IT-Rechtsberater’ (IT Legal Advisor) and has been a permanent advisor to the ‘Handelsblatt’ newspaper for many years.

Today, digital and AI legal issues can only be considered in a global context. For this reason, Söbbing has participated in international conferences in Stanford, Vancouver, Singapore, Shenzhen, Venice, Vilnius, Lausanne and Geneva and has discussed issues with experts from Google, Meta, OpenAI, NVIDIA and the United Nations, among others.

Söbbing studied law at the universities of Münster, Düsseldorf and Washington (State), worked with Thomas Hoeren at the ITM in Münster and completed programmes at Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Shanghai and St. Gallen.

He is a member of the Academic Council on the United Nations System, the Friends of the Aspen Institute Germany and the Harvard Law School Association of Germany.