Charting the course for next generation of the practice and business of law.
The AI Native Law Conference connects law firm leaders, legal innovators, technologists, founders, investors, and in house legal leaders to examine how legal services are being rebuilt around AI, agents, legal engineering, new pricing models, and new client expectations.
Why this conference, why now?
Legal AI has moved beyond experimentation. The next question is not whether lawyers will use AI. The question is what legal services look like when AI is built into the operating model from the beginning.
AI native firms are already testing new approaches to staffing, pricing, supervision, client service, knowledge capture, and delivery. Traditional firms are responding with their own AI strategies. Clients are asking harder questions about speed, value, transparency, and outcomes. This conference is where those questions come together.
AI native firms are already testing new approaches to staffing, pricing, supervision, client service, knowledge capture, and delivery. Traditional firms are responding with their own AI strategies. Clients are asking harder questions about speed, value, transparency, and outcomes. This conference is where those questions come together.
Location
Ease Hospitality Center
1345 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10105
1345 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10105
Date & Time
September 9, 2026
8:00 AM - 6:00 PM
8:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Early-registration Rate - $999
Powered by
LegalTech Connect
LegalTech Connect
Who will be there?
This conference reaches well beyond AI native law firms. We are living through what may be the most transformational period in the history of legal services, a shift most of us will see only once in our careers. AI does not touch one corner of the industry; it touches everyone who practices, buys, builds, funds, or runs legal services. That is why this room is open to the full legal community. Here is who you will be in the room with:
Traditional law firm leaders. Managing partners, practice group leaders, COOs, and partners rethinking how their firms staff, price, and deliver work.
Private capital markets professionals. Venture capital, private equity, and investment bankers and advisors, and funders backing law firms and legal technology.
In-house and legal department leaders. General counsel, deputy GCs, heads of legal operations, and innovation leads evaluating AI-native providers and pressure-testing their own AI strategies.
Private capital markets professionals. Venture capital, private equity, and investment bankers and advisors, and funders backing law firms and legal technology.
In-house and legal department leaders. General counsel, deputy GCs, heads of legal operations, and innovation leads evaluating AI-native providers and pressure-testing their own AI strategies.
Founders and operators of AI-native firms. The people building new firm models around AI from day one.
Legal engineers, KM, and innovation professionals. The practitioners turning legal judgment into reusable systems, workflows, and AI-enabled processes.
Legal technologists and product leaders. The builders and buyers deploying legal AI inside firms and companies.
Pricing and business-of-law professionals. The people designing flat fee, subscription, and outcome-based models that move beyond the billable hour.
Legal engineers, KM, and innovation professionals. The practitioners turning legal judgment into reusable systems, workflows, and AI-enabled processes.
Legal technologists and product leaders. The builders and buyers deploying legal AI inside firms and companies.
Pricing and business-of-law professionals. The people designing flat fee, subscription, and outcome-based models that move beyond the billable hour.
Join Your Peers
(a partial list of attending organizations)
If you are shaping how legal work gets strategized, built, priced, supervised, or delivered, you belong here.
AI Native Law does not mean simply "using AI tools" or "replacing lawyers with chatbots." It means rethinking legal work around new capabilities: AI agents, legal engineering, new firm models, new economics, human judgment, structured knowledge, expert oversight, workflow automation, and pricing models that reward outcomes rather than time spent.
What about an AI Native Law Firm? As Matt Pollins puts in on his AI Firm Index website, "[The definition of an AI Native Law Firm] is still an open question, but it's maturing. We are moving from hype around the category to more specificity about what these firms do: how they price, how they take on work, how they deliver it."
Some of the features and characteristics of AI Native Law Firms are:
AI Agents
Legal work moving from prompt-based assistance to supervised agentic workflows.
Legal Engineering
Lawyers and technologists converting legal judgment into reusable systems, workflows, and AI-enabled processes.
New Firm Models
Lean firms, specialist firms, hybrid providers, and full-service firms designed around AI from day one.
New Economics
Flat fees, value pricing, subscriptions, outcome based pricing, and pressure on the billable hour.
Human Judgment
The lawyer’s role shifting toward strategy, risk calibration, supervision, client counseling, and accountability.
8:00- 9:00
Arrival, Breakfast, & Networking
Arrive early so you can fully enjoy a wonderful breakfast and network with the brightest minds in the AI Native Law Community.
9:00- 9:15
Opening Remarks
Patrick DiDomenico, Founder & CEO, LegalTech Connect
Matt Pollins, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Lupl / Founder, The AI Native Firm Index
Matt Pollins, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Lupl / Founder, The AI Native Firm Index
9:15 - 10:00
Keynote
TBA
10:00 - 10:45
Designing and Structuring an AI Native Law Firm
What makes a law firm AI native, and what does it take to actually design one? This foundational session sets the stage for the day. It starts by examining what makes AI native firms different: designed around AI from day one, with agentic workflows, legal engineering, structured knowledge, and pricing tied to outcomes rather than hours. It then turns to creation: entity design, management service organizations (MSO), alternative business structures (ABS), outside capital, non-lawyer ownership restrictions, and professional responsibility considerations on independence, supervision, and fee sharing that shape decisions. We will separate what is settled, what is state specific, and what remains open. Attendees will leave with a practical road map for building, or becoming, an AI-native law firm.
Elliott Portnoy, Strategic Advisor for Investment Legal Sector | Former Global Chief Executive Officer of Dentons
Elliott Portnoy, Strategic Advisor for Investment Legal Sector | Former Global Chief Executive Officer of Dentons
10:45 - 11:15
Morning Networking Break
Enjoy refreshments and network with the brightest minds in the AI Native Law Community.
11:20 - 11:30
Spotlight Session: Destroying Litigation Expense: How One Law Firm Hired AI to Replace Associates and Paralegals
With an AI-savvy senior lawyer at the helm, AI now outperforms the median human associate by a long shot. When Michael Showalter realized this in March 2026, he started a solo litigation boutique. Other law firms continue to charge for teams of associates—and even paralegals and secretaries, remarkably enough—with a billable-hour model that disincentivizes productivity gains. But Showalter PLLC is destroying litigation expense, often charging less than one tenth of what a traditional law firm would cost. That is possible because the firm is aggressively leveraging AI.
In this talk Mr. Showalter shows what an AI-native firm looks like day to day—and issues a challenge to every lawyer still waiting: the tools to build the practice you want are already here. All that’s left is the nerve to make it happen.
Michael Showalter, Founder, Showalter PLLC
In this talk Mr. Showalter shows what an AI-native firm looks like day to day—and issues a challenge to every lawyer still waiting: the tools to build the practice you want are already here. All that’s left is the nerve to make it happen.
Michael Showalter, Founder, Showalter PLLC
11:30 - 12:30
Inside the AI-Native Legal Department
Corporate legal departments have quietly run on AI-native principles for years: fixed budgets, playbooks, automation, and success measured by outcomes rather than hours. Now, as AI copilots and agents reshape legal work, in-house leaders face a new question: if you designed your department today, how would you build it? General counsel, legal operations, and innovation leaders share what an AI-native legal department really looks like. They'll explore and share: what stays in-house, what moves out, what needs to change, and what they now expect from outside counsel and vendors.
Laurie Basch, Associate General Counsel, McKinsey & Company
Moderator: Ken Crutchfield, Founder & CEO, Spring Forward Consulting
Laurie Basch, Associate General Counsel, McKinsey & Company
Moderator: Ken Crutchfield, Founder & CEO, Spring Forward Consulting
12:30 - 1:15
Lunch & Networking
Enjoy a delicious lunch and network with new friends and colleagues in the AI Native Law Community.
1:15 - 1:25
Spotlight Session: What Is an AI-Native Law Firm?
This past May, Helen Fan gathered 50 people in Silicon Valley to wrestle with one question: What is an AI-native law firm? Everyone uses the term, few can define it. Helen shares where that conversation landed and offers her own answer through the Legal AI Value Stack, her framework that began as a theory about defensibility in a post-SaaS world and evolved, through her hands-on 100-day agent experiment, into a working map of AI transformation. She'll cut through the hype to the one thing that matters most in becoming AI-native, and it isn't the tools. A sharp take from a practitioner and community builder, on a term everyone uses but few truly understand.
Helen Fan, Chief AI Officer, MagStone Law | Founder, Legal Tech Frontier & Helen's Legal AI Lab
Helen Fan, Chief AI Officer, MagStone Law | Founder, Legal Tech Frontier & Helen's Legal AI Lab
1:25-2:15
Panel: Can AI Native Law Firms Compete with Traditional Law Firms?
Can AI native firms win the trust, judgment, and relationships that incumbents have built over decades? Can traditional firms defend their position against rivals with lower costs, fixed pricing, and capital to spend? This session examines both sides of the competition. We will look at where AI-native models are gaining ground, where established firms still hold the advantage, and how the market may split between them. The discussion will draw on economics, client demand, regulation, and capital. Founders, firm leaders, and investors will leave with a sharper view of who is positioned to succeed, and what each must do to thrive in an uncertain future.
Avi Gesser, Partner and Co-Chair of the Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Privacy Practice Group, Debevoise & Plimpton
Sanjay Kamlani, Founder & CEO, FairPlay / Managing Partner, FairPlay Law
Liz Paisner, Managing Partner, General Legal
Avi Gesser, Partner and Co-Chair of the Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Privacy Practice Group, Debevoise & Plimpton
Sanjay Kamlani, Founder & CEO, FairPlay / Managing Partner, FairPlay Law
Liz Paisner, Managing Partner, General Legal
2:15 - 2:45
Build, Buy, or Blow It Up: The Path Is in the Math
“AI-native” isn’t just for boutiques or startups with a clean slate. Incumbent firms—and increasingly, individual partners and practices—are asking what it means for them. Rob Saccone, a longtime builder and operator in the business of law, frames the real strategic choices: build your own AI capability, buy your way in, or rethink the model entirely. He argues this isn’t a tech decision, a press release, or a proclamation: it’s about the economics of your practice.
Rob Saccone, Partner, Nexlaw Partners
Rob Saccone, Partner, Nexlaw Partners
2:45 - 3:05
Afternoon Networking Break
Enjoy refreshments and network with the brightest minds in the AI Native Law Community.
3:05 - 3:15
Spotlight Session: TBA
TBA
3:15 -4:00
Panel: Outside Money, Inside Pressure: Funding the AI Era of Law
Two forces are reshaping how legal work gets funded. Outside investors are backing AI-native law firms built from scratch, putting hundreds of millions behind a model designed to compete with incumbents on speed and cost. At the same time, traditional firms are spending more on AI and research and development than ever before, straining a partnership structure that was never built to fund heavy technology investment. This session examines both sides: how outside capital is entering legal services through new ownership structures, and how the pressure to fund AI is changing the economics and independence of established firms.
David Perla, Vice Chair, Burford Capital
Speaker TBA
Speaker TBA
David Perla, Vice Chair, Burford Capital
Speaker TBA
Speaker TBA
4:00 - 4:50
Open Forum Discussion
After a full day of amazing conversations, let's have one more. Our Facilitators will set the stage, frame the topics, and surface open questions. Then the room takes over. Attendee discuss the issues and bring their ideas, experiences, and conclusions. The full nature of the AI Native Law Community is still being defined, so every participant has something to add. This session is designed to capture the insights, opinions, and ideas of this community.
Facilitator: Rick Merrill, Managing Partner at Merrill
Facilitator: TBA
Facilitator: Rick Merrill, Managing Partner at Merrill
Facilitator: TBA
4:50 - 5:00
Closing Remarks
Patrick DiDomenico, Founder & CEO, LegalTech Connect
Matt Pollins, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Lupl / Founder, The AI Native Firm Index
Matt Pollins, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Lupl / Founder, The AI Native Firm Index
5:00 PM
Networking Reception
Cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and continued conversation.
Limited sponsorship opportunities are available.
Contact us for details: [email protected]
Contact us for details: [email protected]
Ease 1345 is one of New York City's premier event destinations, built for exactly this kind of day: high-tech session spaces, comfortable lounges for the conversations in between, and thoughtful food and beverage throughout. A serious setting for a serious moment in the profession, and a great place to spend a day with this community.