Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Overview

Our Artificial Intelligence (AI) practice focuses on three key client concerns: the use of AI in support of the practice of law, the rapid and widespread use of AI in our clients’ work and operations, and the burgeoning legal and regulatory requirements for AI. The foundations for BakerHostetler’s AI advice are our client experience, our deep industry and policy involvement, and our scholarship. This experience allows our team to address the realities of AI use and related technological approaches while understanding that our clients are still developing their uses of these new technologies.

While much of AI legal practice is still in its infancy, BakerHostetler has already developed a track record of assisting clients with a variety of AI and related issues, including contract negotiation, IP protections, data privacy and mapping, algorithm development and explanation (transparency), and audit and disparate impact concerns.

Our Services

Agreement and deal advice: We provide clients with benchmarked considerations relating to AI during deal and contracting negotiations. We also draft and negotiate technology agreements and advise on existing agreements.

Algorithm transparency: We assist clients with responding to inquiries regarding their construction and use of AI and related processes, which also include third-party and regulatory requests.

Corpora licensing: We negotiate text and data mining licenses with various content and data owners to enable training general language and fine-tuned data models.

Expert, officer and employee training: We support clients with foundational knowledge regarding AI and related processes, including data assembly, AI and algorithm operation, audit practices, potential for disparate impacts, and related contractual and regulatory obligations.

Information use: We advise clients on the information feeding into AI and related processes, addressing concerns that the value associated with AI may rely heavily on the underlying data.

IP audit services: We guide clients in identifying and capturing the IP assets generated as a result of their development of AI tools, especially the scope of copyright and trade secret protections for collections of data and the algorithms used to analyze and operationalize that data.

ML training counseling: We assist clients in assessing the legal implications of obtaining data and content from public sources to train various machine learning (ML) models, including the copyright fair use implications related to data scraping, as well as building protections against infringing output from various AI applications.

Privacy compliance: We advise clients on EU and U.S. privacy requirements targeted at addressing risks associated with using personal information for automated decision-making leading to potential legal, financial or social consequences for individual consumers or employees.

Special projects: Multinational clients demand additional knowledge and varied experience. Our multidisciplinary teams combine significant multinational experience to address cross-discipline AI projects that involve data privacy, data protection and security, e-Discovery, litigation readiness, and information governance issues.

Strategy development: We work with clients to determine how they can use AI and related processes within their organizations, including the potential impact on existing contractual requirements, business operations, and data collection and use, as well as its intersection with third parties.

Select Experience

  • Provided a consortium of more than 40 companies with organizational advice centered on AI and related third-party consulting regarding data collection and use, algorithm development, IP ownership and licensing, data privacy and security impact, data lake development, data flows and use of limited data sets and de-identified data, and algorithm application, as well as monetization considerations and related contracting.
  • Developed internal AI program materials for multinational manufacturer addressing product creation, related audits, partnerships, notices and proposed law.
  • Counseled various clients regarding use of AI for information governance/record remediation work.
  • Advised on strategic company planning and contracting guidance related to AI and advanced analytic dashboard development for an organization’s spinoff operations intersecting with cloud storage, data privacy and third-party responsibilities.
  • Developed internal AI policy and practice materials for contractor and staffing agency with significant privacy policy development intersections.
  • Advised construction company on application of AI and algorithm strategy for procurement activities and bot negotiations related to commodity purchase, offer and acceptance, as well as related contracting and memorialization.
  • Developed and provide ongoing advice for the application of New York City’s Automated Employment Decision Tool (“AEDT”) law and requirements for various clients, including the interplay of AI application and employment considerations.
  • Advised healthcare client on use of AI for product and course-of-care development, including data purchase and sale and related IP protections.
  • Developed Data Protection Impact Assessment (“DPIA”) tools designed to support U.S. and EU requirements to identify and mitigate risks associated with the use of automated decision-making.
  • Advised retailer regarding use of AI and algorithm products for resume intake and related hiring considerations.
  • Participated in and advised on multiple instances of utilization of algorithms and technology-assisted review (“TAR”) in litigation and in the context of e-Discovery production obligations.
  • Developed internal AI policy and practice materials for pharmacology company/drug distributor.
  • Advised clients on requirements and strategies to comply with new U.S. state privacy laws requiring the right to optout of automated decision-making affecting consumer and employee data processing activities.
  • Drafted, supported and led discussions for industry reporting on AI uses and proposed framework.
  • Advised multiple clients in the copyright infringement, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, breach of contract, and common law tort implications of data scraping for ML model training purposes.
  • Sourced data corpora licenses from proprietary and open-source providers for use in ML training.
  • Advised clients on the liability implications of providing generative AI tools to users, including DMCA platform safe harbor protections and terms of use limitations of liability.
More »

Professionals

Name Title Office Email
Partner Atlanta
Associate Washington, D.C.
Partner Cleveland
Partner San Francisco
Partner Washington, D.C.
Counsel Costa Mesa
Chief Information Officer
Chief Information Officer Cincinnati
Partner Washington, D.C.
Partner Philadelphia
Partner New York
Partner New York
Partner Cincinnati
Partner Atlanta

Experience

  • Provided a consortium of more than 40 companies with organizational advice centered on AI and related third-party consulting regarding data collection and use, algorithm development, IP ownership and licensing, data privacy and security impact, data lake development, data flows and use of limited data sets and de-identified data, and algorithm application, as well as monetization considerations and related contracting.
  • Developed internal AI program materials for multinational manufacturer addressing product creation, related audits, partnerships, notices and proposed law.
  • Counseled various clients regarding use of AI for information governance/record remediation work.
  • Advised on strategic company planning and contracting guidance related to AI and advanced analytic dashboard development for an organization’s spinoff operations intersecting with cloud storage, data privacy and third-party responsibilities.
  • Developed internal AI policy and practice materials for contractor and staffing agency with significant privacy policy development intersections.
  • Advised construction company on application of AI and algorithm strategy for procurement activities and bot negotiations related to commodity purchase, offer and acceptance, as well as related contracting and memorialization.
  • Developed and provide ongoing advice for the application of New York City’s Automated Employment Decision Tool (“AEDT”) law and requirements for various clients, including the interplay of AI application and employment considerations.
  • Advised healthcare client on use of AI for product and course-of-care development, including data purchase and sale and related IP protections.
  • Developed Data Protection Impact Assessment (“DPIA”) tools designed to support U.S. and EU requirements to identify and mitigate risks associated with the use of automated decision-making.
  • Advised retailer regarding use of AI and algorithm products for resume intake and related hiring considerations.
  • Participated in and advised on multiple instances of utilization of algorithms and technology-assisted review (“TAR”) in litigation and in the context of e-Discovery production obligations.
  • Developed internal AI policy and practice materials for pharmacology company/drug distributor.
  • Advised clients on requirements and strategies to comply with new U.S. state privacy laws requiring the right to optout of automated decision-making affecting consumer and employee data processing activities.
  • Drafted, supported and led discussions for industry reporting on AI uses and proposed framework.
  • Advised multiple clients in the copyright infringement, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, breach of contract, and common law tort implications of data scraping for ML model training purposes.
  • Sourced data corpora licenses from proprietary and open-source providers for use in ML training.
  • Advised clients on the liability implications of providing generative AI tools to users, including DMCA platform safe harbor protections and terms of use limitations of liability.

Publications

Memberships

  • James Sherer, Track Chair and Moderator, “Artificial Intelligence and the Law,” American Bar Association and New York State Bar Association Annual Conference (2017).

Key Contacts

Blog

In The Blogs

Previous Next
Data Counsel
2023: A Generative AI Odyssey
By Jiwon (Jamie) Kim, Katherine Lowry, James A. Sherer
March 15, 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI) has long existed in the public consciousness through science fiction, doomsday planners, and fears of Ray Kurzweil’s singularity—but it now appears to be an accessible reality. 2023 has begun with a sharp...
Read More ->
Data Counsel
Katherine Lowry Named An "Artificial Intelligence Visionary" By Legal Tech Leader
By Theodore J. Kobus III, Katherine Lowry
February 23, 2022
Congratulations to Katherine Lowry for being named an AI Visionary by Relativity, a recognition given to those whose foresight and leadership in advancing the use of AI are propelling their organizations forward. Read the full press...
Read More ->
Data Counsel
The Not-So-Hidden FTC Guidance on Organizational Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), from Data Gathering Through Model Audits
By James A. Sherer, Nichole L. Sterling
May 24, 2021
Our last AI post on this blog, the New (if Decidedly Not ‘Final’) Frontier of Artificial Intelligence Regulation, touched on both the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) April 19, 2021, AI guidance and the European Commission’s proposed AI...
Read More ->
Data Counsel
The New (if Decidedly Not ‘Final') Frontier of Artificial Intelligence Regulation
By Chad A. Rutkowski, James A. Sherer, Nichole L. Sterling
April 27, 2021
The week of April 19 was an eventful one for practitioners following the evolution of potential artificial intelligence (AI) enforcement both in the United States and abroad, answering some questions regarding which regulators were going...
Read More ->