AI touches contracts, disclosure and governance before it touches litigation
Most businesses meet AI risk long before a lawsuit does. A vendor contract references a model that changes without notice. A pitch deck describes AI capability that outpaces the product. A board wants a policy on employee use of AI tools and has no idea where to start. These are the moments that call for outside counsel who works in AI regularly, not counsel who is encountering it for the first time alongside the client.
I built my practice exactly around exactly this gap. I advise startups, technology companies and growing businesses on AI compliance, technology transactions, securities law and venture financing, often serving as outside general counsel for companies that need sophisticated legal judgment without an in-house legal department.
When to call
Call me before signing an AI vendor agreement, not after a dispute over data rights or model performance arises. Diligence on an AI vendor now routinely covers training data provenance, liability allocation when the model is wrong and what happens to a company’s data once it enters someone else’s system.
Call me when you are drafting or reviewing pitch materials that describe AI capability. Overstating what a product’s AI actually does has become a securities and fraud exposure, not just a marketing problem.
Call me when you are raising venture financing for a company built on or around AI. Investors are asking sharper diligence questions than they were even a year ago, and disclosure obligations around AI-related risk factors are still unsettled.
Call me when you are adopting AI tools internally, whether that means a customer-facing chatbot, an AI note taker in client meetings or generative tools used in day to day operations. A governance policy written before adoption is far cheaper than one written to explain a mistake after the fact.
Call me when a regulator, insurer or counterparty starts asking AI-specific questions your business cannot yet answer. Insurance underwriters, in particular, are increasingly functioning as de facto AI regulators through exclusions and questionnaires that most companies have not read closely.
Why Me?
I chair the NJSBA’s Venture Capital, Emerging Growth Technology Companies and Angel Investors Committee and serve on the NJSBA Artificial Intelligence Committee, where I work directly on the guidance and legislation shaping how AI gets regulated in New Jersey. I hold a FINRA Series 65 license, was first general counsel at multiple entrepreneurial companies including The Money Store and MarketCounsel, and was named an NJBIZ Leader in Law in both 2023 and 2026. I write regularly on AI regulation, governance and compliance at waltercounsel.com and in outlets including Law360 and New Jersey Lawyer.
Businesses working with AI do not need a lawyer who is learning the subject in real time. They need one who is already in the room where the rules are being written.