The reflections developed in this text engage with the premises presented by Cristiano Starling Erse and Priscilla da Silva Aduan in the article "The family, business activity and the advocacy of intersections", published in the Migalhas Newsletter on May 18, 2026 (Organizations Law Column), especially regarding the contemporary understanding of advocacy structured from the areas of intersection between different legal fields.
For a long time, Labor Law and Business Law were presented as legal fields with their own distinct and relatively independent rationales. On one hand, the universe of protecting human labor, safeguarding the dignity of the worker, reducing structural inequalities, and legally limiting economic power. On the other hand, the discipline of the company, free enterprise, corporate governance, the organization of the factors of production, and the preservation of economic activity.
Contemporary practice, however, has shown that this methodological division no longer fully corresponds to the real structure of modern business conflicts. In a growing number of situations, labor issues do not appear merely as peripheral effects of economic activity. They are integrated into the very strategic core of the company, influencing governance, reputation, valuation, regulatory sustainability, access to credit, investment attraction, and the responsibility of managers.
In these cases, legal questions no longer arise exclusively from a single branch of law. They emerge precisely at the intersection of business organization, labor management, corporate governance, compliance, civil liability, and institutional sustainability.
This transformation profoundly alters the role of contemporary corporate law.
The labor dimension as a structural element of the company.
The Brazilian tradition of separating the "labor department" from the "corporate department" has often produced a fragmented view of business activity. Labor liabilities were treated as an operational contingency, not as a structural governance variable.
This model is starting to prove insufficient.
Today, topics such as occupational mental health, psychosocial risk management, organizational harassment, labor compliance, outsourcing, "pejotização" (the practice of hiring workers as independent contractors to avoid labor laws), workplace safety, diversity, data protection in labor relations, gender pay equality, variable compensation (including profit-sharing), employee participation in internal boards, vesting, burnout, work on digital platforms, and ESG responsibility have come to occupy a central position in relevant business decisions.
Human labor is no longer perceived merely as a production cost. It has come to represent a factor in corporate risk, institutional stability, and economic sustainability.
This perception finds important theoretical support in the classic theory of company profiles developed by Alberto Asquini, whose formulation exerted a profound influence on the structuring of Business Law in the 2002 Civil Code. By conceiving the company as a multifaceted legal phenomenon, Asquini demonstrates that it is not limited to the figure of the entrepreneur, the organized assets, or the economic activity performed. The company also has a corporate or institutional profile, understood as the human organization structured for the performance of productive activity.
From this perspective, labor relations cease to occupy a merely peripheral position in the legal understanding of the company. The human element becomes an integral part of the institutional structure of the economic organization. The company is not only capital organized for the production of goods or services; it also constitutes a hierarchical community of people, skills, functions, and labor relations coordinated around a common economic purpose.
This interpretation finds an echo in the classic formulation of Alfredo Rocco, for whom “"The specific constitutive element of a company, in the sense of the code, is the fact of organizing the work of others... we only have a company when production is obtained through the work of others, or in other words, when the entrepreneur recruits labor, organizes it, supervises it, remunerates it, and directs it towards the ends of production.".
The reasoning presented reinforces the contemporary perception that labor, occupational, and organizational issues are not simply externalities of business activity, but central elements of the very legal structure of the company as an institution.
The ESG agenda itself has been a decisive contributor to this change. Although frequently associated with the "Social" pillar, the labor dimension actually permeates all three pillars of contemporary governance.
In the social sphere, because it involves dignity, health, inclusion, and worker protection. In the environmental sphere, because numerous corporate environmental risks depend directly on the management of working conditions and the prevention of occupational illnesses. And in the governance sphere, because business administration has become institutionally responsible for structures of prevention, control, monitoring, and management of organizational human risks.
The practical consequence is significant: certain labor problems are no longer exclusively labor-related issues.
The erosion of traditional boundaries between branches of law.
This transformation is noticeable in various contemporary scenarios.
An investigation into systemic workplace harassment can trigger not only labor lawsuits, but also reputational repercussions, collective civil liability, impacts on integrity programs, investor questioning, and accountability for administrators.
Similarly, structural flaws in the implementation of NR-1, especially after the incorporation of psychosocial risk management, can transcend the infralegal labor sphere and reach issues of corporate governance, fiduciary duty of diligence, and corporate responsibility.
The same occurs in mergers and acquisitions. Labor liabilities are no longer analyzed solely from a quantitative perspective. Organizational culture, litigation history, illnesses, labor compliance practices, reputational exposure, and institutional maturity in the management of human labor are examined.
In other words, the legal analysis of a company necessarily involves a legal analysis of how it understands and organizes its work.
In this context, classic categories of Business Law — such as the social function of the company, the fiduciary duties of administrators, the preservation of economic activity, and governance — are beginning to interact more and more intensely with categories specific to Labor Law, such as the work environment, the reduction of risks inherent to work, human dignity, and the protection of occupational health.
The intersection ceases to be episodic. It becomes structural.
The responsibility of managers and the new centrality of labor management.
This phenomenon also modifies the understanding of the responsibility of corporate directors.
Traditionally, business due diligence was primarily associated with financial, tax, competition, or regulatory management. Currently, there is a growing understanding that business administration is also responsible for the institutional architecture that protects human labor within the organization.
This means that significant omissions in the prevention of occupational risks, in the management of organizational harassment, or in the implementation of minimum labor compliance mechanisms are no longer interpreted as simple operational failures but are now seen as governance flaws.
An integrated reading of articles 153 and 158 of the Corporations Law and articles 1,011 and 1,016 of the Civil Code, combined with the contemporary expansion of corporate due diligence duties, indicates a relevant trend: the management of human labor is gradually becoming part of the legal content of the duty of prudent administration.
The modern company manages not only economic assets, but also complex human risks.
The advocacy of intersections
It is in this scenario that what can be called the advocacy of intersections begins to take shape and gain traction.
This is not simply about generic multidisciplinarity or simultaneous action between specialized departments. What emerges is something more sophisticated: a legal practice structured from the recognition that certain contemporary problems are intrinsically hybrid.
A corporate lawyer who ignores the labor law implications of a strategic decision may produce corporately weak solutions. Similarly, a labor lawyer who disregards the economic, corporate, and operational logic of the company risks formulating strategies that are legally sound but institutionally unviable.
Contemporary complexity demands professionals capable of navigating between different legal rationales without losing technical depth.
This involves understanding financial statements and organizational culture; corporate governance and occupational health; compliance and labor relations; due diligence and psychosocial risk management; civil liability and enterprise architecture.
High specialization remains indispensable. However, in isolation, it may become insufficient when faced with conflicts whose structure is inherently cross-cutting.
The future of corporate law lies in cross-functionality.
The traditional fragmentation of legal branches remains relevant from a didactic and methodological perspective. However, contemporary business reality has begun to produce conflicts that constantly challenge these boundaries.
The modern company has become a complex regulatory organism, simultaneously subject to economic, social, reputational, environmental, and institutional demands. In this environment, labor relations are no longer seen as a mere accessory dimension of economic activity. They are essential to the very stability of the organization.
Therefore, the importance of legal practice capable of formulating integrated diagnoses, understanding intersecting legal externalities, and building structurally consistent solutions is growing.
The advocacy of intersections arises precisely from this need.
She recognizes that, in certain disputes and decision-making processes, nothing is merely incidental. Corporate governance influences labor management, just as labor management conditions corporate governance. Both become part of the same legal ecosystem of risks, responsibilities, and institutional sustainability.
The future of corporate law — especially in more sophisticated regulatory environments — seems to be heading precisely in this direction: less rigid compartmentalization and more capacity to operate technically in the hybrid zones where contemporary conflicts actually arise.
Bibliography
- ASQUINI, Alberto. Company Profiles. Translated by Fábio Konder Comparato. Journal of Commercial, Industrial, Economic and Financial Law, São Paulo, no. 104, pp. 109-126, Oct./Dec. 1996.
- COASE, Ronald. The Nature of the Firm. Economica, vol. 4, no. 16, 1937.
- DELGADO, Mauricio Godinho. Labor Law Course. 19th ed. São Paulo: LTr, 2020.
- ERSE, Cristiano Starling; ADUAN, Priscilla da Silva. Family, business activity, and advocacy: the intersections. In: MIGALHAS, Migalhas Law Column for Organizations, May 18, 2026. Available at: <https://www.migalhas.com.br/coluna/migalhas-de-direito-das-organizacoes/456059/a-familia-a-atividade-empresarial-ea-advocacia-das-interseccoes>. Accessed on: May 25, 2026.
- FRAZÃO, Ana. The social function of the company: repercussions on the civil liability of controllers and administrators of publicly traded companies.. Rio de Janeiro: Renovar, 2011.
- ROCCO, Alfredo. Principles of Commercial Law. Campinas: LZN Editora.
- SALOMÃO FILHO, Calixto. The new corporate law. 5th ed. São Paulo: Malheiros, 2019.
Ronald Sharp Jr.
Lawyer and Master of Laws