Legal AI New York 2026
Greenplaces is a partner and panel host at Legal AI New York, Nov 11–12. Join us for a session on AI governance in legal.
About this event
Legal AI New York is Inside Practice's two-day gathering for the people operationalizing AI inside law firms: chief innovation and AI officers, knowledge management and legal ops leaders, pricing and finance heads, and in-house counsel from 100+ firms. Taking place November 11–12, 2026 in New York City with Thomson Reuters as lead partner, the program is built around four themes — scaling AI from pilot to enterprise, AI governance and risk, bridging the client–firm AI divide, and the forces reshaping law, from legal engineers to agentic AI.
Expect enterprise case studies from firms like McGuireWoods, Paul Hastings, DLA Piper, and King & Spalding, live platform demonstrations, an interactive AI maturity assessment, and peer roundtables organized by firm size and AI maturity. It's a deliberately small room, and that's the point: fewer vendors, more practitioners, and real conversation about what's working.
Why we're going
That overlap is where Greenplaces works. We help law firms build defensible AI governance programs and SOC 2 readiness alongside their carbon and sustainability reporting, so the firm can answer every "show us" request with evidence instead of promises. We're joining Legal AI New York as an Event Partner and bringing a panel on AI governance in the legal industry, with perspectives from a law firm client, a professional services partner, and the Greenplaces team.
We'll also be at our table both days. If you're responsible for AI governance, information security, or firm risk and want to compare notes, come find us — or let us know you're attending and we'll set a time.
Sessions
Who Audits the Law Firm?
Proving AI Governance to the Clients Who Demand It
| Format: | Panel |
| Speakers: | Robbie Allen, Managing Director, Automated Consulting Group |
| Mary Beth Marchione, Partner, Wipfli | |
| Christopher James, Partner, Vinson & Elkins | |
| Moderator: | Amanda Grady, Director of Trust Services, Greenplaces |
| Time: | 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM ET |
| Room: | TBD |
| Description: |
Corporate clients have stopped asking whether their firms use AI and started asking them to prove how. AI is showing up in outside counsel guidelines, security questionnaires now ask about model providers, subprocessors, retention and training data, and the partner who signs the response is rarely the partner who understands it. Meanwhile the first law firms have begun certifying to ISO/IEC 42001, and while the SOC 2 criteria themselves haven't changed, what auditors test in an AI-enabled environment has. This session looks at AI governance from the outside in: what a sophisticated client will accept as evidence versus what gets sent back, which attestation actually answers the question being asked, how an auditor distinguishes a control that operates from a policy that merely exists, and what certification realistically costs a firm in time, money and partner attention. |
Meet the speakers
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Amanda Grady
Director of Trust Services, Greenplaces
(speaker page)
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Robbie Allen
Managing Director, Automated Consulting Group
(LinkedIn profile, opens in a new tab)
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Mary Beth Marchion
Partner, Wipfli
(LinkedIn profile, opens in a new tab)
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Christopher James
Partner, Vinson & Elkins
(LinkedIn profile, opens in a new tab)
Bios
Amanda Grady is Solutions Lead for Trust Services at GreenPlaces. She brings over a decade of experience in the technology assurance space at a Big 4 accounting firm, where she helped organizations build and prove out their internal IT controls. She holds a degree in Information Systems Management. Whether the work is SOC 2 readiness, ISO 27001 certification, or AI governance, Amanda’s focus stays the same: building programs that hold up to real scrutiny.
Robbie Allen is the Managing Director of Automated Consulting Group, where he helps mid-market companies turn AI ambition into working solutions. He founded Automated Insights, recognized as one of the first commercial generative AI companies, which was acquired by Vista Equity Partners. He also co-founded Infinia ML (acquired by Aspirion) and Bionic Health (acquired by Thrive). Previously, Robbie was Cisco's youngest Distinguished Engineer. He holds two master's degrees from MIT, has authored 10 O'Reilly technology books, holds multiple AI patents, and has invested in 170+ startups as General Partner of the NC Tweener Fund.
Mary Beth Marchione is a Partner at Wipfli, where she leads risk advisory work spanning IT audits, SOC 1 and SOC 2 reporting, regulatory reporting, and risk mitigation. Over more than 14 years, she has helped startups, fintechs, health technology companies, and financial institutions prove that their controls hold up in complex technology environments. She is a CPA, CISA, and CISSP, holds AWS cloud certification, and serves as a director with ISACA and on the Technology Association of Georgia’s Digital Health board. Mary Beth holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.S. in business administration from Duquesne University.
Christopher James is a Partner at Vinson & Elkins, based in San Francisco, where he practices in the firm’s data privacy, government enforcement, and commercial litigation groups. He advises companies in technology, media, sports, retail, finance, and energy on data privacy compliance, internal controls, and compliance risk assessments, and represents them before the DOJ, SEC, and state regulators. A Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US), Chris was named to Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Cybersecurity Lawyers from 2024 to 2026 and recently co-authored analysis of California’s new AI vendor certification requirements. He holds a J.D. from Washington University School of Law.
