We created Generative Legal for the legal leaders who are shaping their organization's response to AI—and who recognize they'll make better decisions by learning from each other.
AI is transforming how legal work is conceived, delivered, and valued, and the pace of change shows no sign of slowing. New capabilities emerge monthly. Yesterday's pilot is today's workflow. What seemed speculative a year ago is now operational at leading firms and legal departments around the world.
The relationship between the legal profession and this technology is too important to be shaped by any single perspective, and too fast-moving to navigate alone. Responding well requires more than technical literacy. It requires judgment—about organizational readiness, about client expectations, about talent, about risk. And that kind of judgment develops best in dialogue with peers who are working through the same questions.
That is what Generative Legal is: an intimate, curated gathering where decision-makers come together to learn from one another. We bring together voices from every corner of the profession because the challenges of AI adoption don't respect the traditional boundaries between them. The general counsel evaluating a new tool, the partner rethinking a practice model, the technologist building the next platform, the academic studying its implications—each holds a piece of the picture. The full image only comes into focus when they're in the same room.
We are intentionally independent and vendor-neutral. Our commitment is to the quality of the dialogue, not to any particular technology or provider. Discussions run under the Chatham House Rule, so participants can speak openly about what's working, what isn't, and what they're grappling with behind closed doors.
The best thinking about AI in law will come from legal leaders learning together. That's the conversation we're building.
Hugh Carlson and Robert Mahari
Co-Founders, Generative Legal
Hugh Carlson is the CEO of Three Crowns LLP. Since joining the firm at its launch in 2014, he has helped build it from a start-up boutique into one of the world's premier dispute resolution practices—now ranked second in the world. He also serves as the firm's General Counsel.
Hugh places special emphasis on innovation, informed by his background as a software engineer. Under his leadership, Three Crowns is now widely recognized as a leader in legal AI. Microsoft has described the firm as an "AI-powered company … bending the curve on innovation" for its deployment of AI tools across legal and business functions. With Stanford's Legal Innovation through Frontier Technology Lab (liftlab), Hugh has co-led the development of Atelier, an AI-powered cross-examination training platform. The tool received the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers award for best training innovation in 2025.
A litigator by background, Hugh has represented large multinationals and sovereigns in their complex, high-stakes disputes. He has been described by clients and peers in Lexology Index as "absolutely phenomenal," "a great strategist," and "integral to the success of Three Crowns," and has repeatedly been recognized in Lawdragon's "Global Litigation 500" and Super Lawyers as a leading litigator. He has taught international arbitration at Harvard Law School since 2019, where he also co-founded the International Arbitration Workshop, and taught at Georgetown Law prior to that.
Hugh advises early-stage legal technology and information security companies on product strategy and positioning, with this market exposure informing his technical leadership at Three Crowns. He regularly speaks on the legal industry, AI, and dispute resolution at leading forums, including The Economist's General Counsel Summit, London International Disputes Week, Stanford Law School, and Yale Law School.
Hugh holds degrees from Georgetown Law, UCLA, and the University of London, and completed the Wharton Global CEO Program. He is admitted to practice in New York and the District of Columbia. He holds the leading credential in information security, the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).
Robert Mahari is the founder of Akiva AI, a company that develops bespoke AI solutions for law firms and in-house legal teams seeking to use artificial intelligence as a durable competitive advantage. His work focuses on translating cutting-edge AI research into systems that are legally grounded, operationally deployable, and aligned with professional and regulatory obligations.
Previously, Robert served as Associate Director of Stanford CodeX—the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics—where he led practice-oriented, interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI and law. He holds a JD-PhD in Legal Artificial Intelligence from Harvard Law School and the MIT Media Lab, training that anchors his dual fluency in computer science and legal doctrine.
Robert works with legal leaders, technologists, and policymakers to design AI systems that improve legal practice, surface new institutional insights, and embed governance into technology by design. His work has been published across disciplines, including in Science and Nature Machine Intelligence, and is regularly featured in outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
