US firm Akerman has appointed its first director of AI development, hiring Charles Zerner from Texas firm Munck Wilson Mandala.

Zerner, originally a litigator before moving into AI, takes on a new role in which he will be responsible for building custom AI applications.

Akerman is already a heavy user of AI, deploying tools including Harvey, TR CoCounsel, Copilot, Claude and ChatGPT, but Zerner is tasked with identifying areas where a tool does not currently exist, or where a bespoke tool may do the job more effectively.

“You have the ability to fulfil a certain number of needs with off the shelf products, but at the same time off the shelf products are designed for a large number of clients. There’s an enormous potential and an enormous gap between what models can do and the implementation of those models to accelerate legal work,” Zerner told Legal IT Insider.

“Part of my job is to look for those specific needs that we have that are not going to be met by existing commercial platforms, or that we can do better; part of it is the long term understanding that models are evolving fast. What do we need to build out so that we’re ready when the models are that capable?”

Akerman chief executive officer Scott Meyers said the firm’s approach to AI was “holistic”, encompassing data, technology, and the governance required to ensure AI could be deployed safely. Zerner’s appointment followed Akerman’s August hire of Michael Adler as director of AI governance & data protection.…

Because you read this