Founding Partner, Burshteyn Polin LLP. Litigate, try billions in tech, AI, crypto, speech, antitrust, security controversies | ex-CEO @cryptomove | @caldebate
San Francisco
Joined November 2009
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If your lawyer sends you a memo in a word doc or email, send it back litbox.tech/sb574/
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if you are sending a doc to a paralegal or word processing team to format, check standing order and local rules compliance, add linked TOC and TOA... ngmi
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I remember when it became clear CryptoMove was not going to raise our Series B and I had to fire myself as CEO and consolidate the team to extend its runway and try to get to profitability. One of our investors was on the Atrium cap table and told me to put the afterburners on instead and if it all blew up, he'd get me a job as a litigator at Atrium. I didn't follow this advice, did fire myself, and ended up at MoFo thanks to a debate buddy. Atrium blew up a few months later. CryptoMove went on with my dad and a small team for another year+ and almost made it. When we were thinking about what to do with our law firm, our first thought was this side car tech co idea with Meghan (my wife) as the CEO. We even started a few VC convos -- there was a clear path to a large seed round. But then we changed course and instead decided to vertically integrate the tech roadmap with our law firm. We decided *not* to be or brand ourselves as an AI native law firm. We are just a high end litigation boutique that happens to know how to use technology. We have some engineers that work inside the law firm optimizing things and building cool shit. We are exactly what this describes - the lawyers using Claude Code and Codex. Meghan is our cofounder and COO and killing it. So far, admittedly only a few months in, it was the right move. We are 100% focused on our cases and winning for clients, not scaling ARR of a tech product. If it was 100 years ago, or 200, we'd have started this same firm so we could practice with our friends at a high talent density. Starting a side car company that made typewriters / lightbulbs specially designed for lawyers ... probably would not have been the right approach. Who knows what will happen. Maybe the VC backed firms will crush and take over. There is room for many different winning models. But so far I am very happy that our lawyers own the firm. Our associates have a path to build their own businesses. And even with some great VCs as clients, boy do I not miss pitching them for capital :).
Wrapped up a busy week at Burshteyn Polin LLP. A few highlights:
⚖️ Filed a motion to compel arbitration in an Automatic Renewal Law case in San Diego
📝 Opposed a motion to compel arbitration in an M&A earnout dispute in the Northern District of California
🛡️ Opposed a preliminary injunction in the District of Maryland
🏛️ Filed a cross-appeal and opposed an appeal in the Fourth Circuit relating to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and DMCA
🌎 Wrapped up a multi-jurisdictional global copyright, right of publicity, and privacy project for an innovative AI company
💡 Were asked to pitch several exciting potential new matters involving commercial contract disputes, data security, and defamation
👶 Celebrated one of our associates welcoming a new child
📍 Entered an appearance in a trade secrets dispute in Delaware
🎨 Got proofs of our new website and logo, launching next year
🛠️ Our engineers shipped some great product and infrastructure innovations for our AI orchestration system
😴 And I got over a nasty bug from the kids and got some sleep
Next week:
🎉 An excellent new associate joins the team (woot!)
🚀 First trial since the firm opened
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Just like lawyers had to figure out how to use electricity, typewriters, email, and the Internet, we will all need to figure out AI. Silo'ing the expertise in an "innovation counsel" team likely unsustainable. Straight up engineers though are super valuable for law firms now. We've built an engineering team inside our law firm to great impact. They can build software, infra, and take the exhaust of lawyers' AI use and turn it production grade. Holy grail of course is lawyers with engineering degrees... 🥂
nytimes.com/2026/10/31/busin…
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Back to the future. Don't need an army any more. We had 4 lawyers easily hold their own against an army of 15+ at three big firms recently.
Seems like many firms may eventually move to a Wachtell-like partner:associate ratio (less than 2:1). Even with AI support, rainmaking partners will still need junior level lawyers to manage the legal workflow, but maybe fewer than in the current model. This may actually encourage even more lateral movement among rainmakers, at least until there is a new equilibrium. Fare-Weil to biglaw's golden age.
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Need to come up with some tweets that are not about AI... maybe CFAA or defamation case roundup or something
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if u are a patent lit associate with a computer science background, you have insane value outside of patent lit in any litigation practice in the new world. if i had any influence on a litigation department of a big firm, i would redistribute all the CS patent lit associates. embed one in every lit team. this is the way
many (most) lawyers have the #2 instinct, it's how they are trained to avoid mistakes. cultivating a software development mindset is key
There are three ways a lawyer reacts the first time Claude gives a wrong answer. One ignores it and files anyway. One panics and bans AI from the file entirely. One asks why it was wrong, learns the gap, and keeps using the tool smarter than before. Only the third camp is actually getting better at this whole "AI thing." The other two just found two different ways to stay stuck.
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gap between entry level lawyer AI adoption and lawyers at the frontier is insane right now. most who consider themselves "power users" have not yet conceived of what is possible. the lawyers that are developing software day-to-day as part of their work product creation (have met barely any) are miles ahead. it'll narrow though, just a matter of time. clients with engineering teams know what is possible and won't settle for less.
Will is correct. Lawyers are only just scratching the surface of what’s possible. Most are using it as a better search tool. But we know so much more is possible if we use vibe coding as our guide. And I can see just how much more there is to go from the tools that we are building internally.
teapaw.org/willchen500/status/210…
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We put together an interactive reading of SB 574, which imposes significant requirements on California lawyers’ AI use:
🧠 No delegation of lawyering to AI
🔎 Humans must verify everything
🏛️ Disclosure of AI use in court submissions
🛠️ Correction of errors and hallucinations
🔒 Controls on confidential inputs
🤝 Informed client consent
⚠️ Sanctions risk for unverified citations
litbox.tech/sb574/
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