About Ed Walters
Ed Walters is the VP of Legal Innovation + Strategy at Clio and one of the original legal tech entrepreneurs. He was the co-founder of Fastcase, a legal publishing company that now serves as the data foundation for Clio Work and Vincent AI.
Ed worked to create a new generation of legal AI tools in his prior role as Chief Strategy Officer at vLex, forging a key partnership with OpenAI and building Vincent AI, which was recognized as the New Product of the Year by the American Association of Law Libraries. He holds nine patents for legal tech innovations.
Before founding Fastcase, Ed worked at Covington & Burling, in Washington D.C. and Brussels, where he advised Microsoft, Merck, SmithKline, the Business Software Alliance, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. His practice focused on corporate advisory work for software companies and sports leagues, and intellectual property litigation.
Ed earned an A.B. in government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. He served as Editor-in-Chief of The Hoya, Georgetown’s college newspaper, and as an editor of The University of Chicago Law Review. From 1996-97, he served as a judicial clerk with the Hon. Emilio M. Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Ed worked in The White House from 1991-93 in the Office of Media Affairs and the Office of Presidential Speechwriting.
He is a member of the D.C. Bar and the Virginia State Bar. Ed is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches The Law of Robots as well as GenAI & BigLaw, and a Lecturer in Law at The University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches Generative AI in Legal Practice. He serves on the Leaders Counsel for the Legal Services Corporation. He is the author and editor of Data-Driven Law (Taylor & Francis 2018) and a contributing author to Legal Informatics (Cambridge University Press 2021).
Bluesky: @ejwalters.bsky.social
ACADEMIC WRITING
Re-Regulating UPL in an Age of AI, 8 Georgetown Law Technology Review 316 (2024).
Self-employment for autonomous robots using smart contracts, (with Eduardo Castello Ferrer, Ivan Berman, et al.), DSpace@MIT, https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/145635.2 (MIT, Oct. 2022).
Fastcase and the Visual Understanding of Judicial Precedents, in LEGAL INFORMATICS (Cambridge, 2021).
The Model Rules of Autonomous Conduct: Ethical Responsibilities of Lawyers and Artificial Intelligence, 35 GA. ST. UNIV. L. REV. 1073(2019).
Data-Driven Law: Data Analytics and the New Legal Services (Taylor & Francis 2019) (book editor, with contributions from, inter alia, William Henderson & Stephen Wolfram).
Not-So-Bright Lines, 3 THE GREEN BAG No. 1 (1999).
No Way Out: Eighth Amendment Protection for Do-or-Die Acts of the Homeless, 62 U. CHI. L. REV. 1619 (1995).
POPULAR PRESS AND ONLINE
Re-Regulating UPL in the Age of AI, American Bar Association Law Practice Magazine (March 2025).
Innovating Toward a Better Normal: Using Product-Market Fit to Serve Clients Better After the Pandemic, Medium (with Jack Newton) available at https://medium.com/@ejwalters/innovating-toward-a-better-normal-47f3330f2b8a (Dec. 2021).
Georgia v. Public.Resource.org: Ending Private Copyright in Public Statutes, A Complete Guide to How the U.S. Supreme Court Will Rule on the Copyrightability of Public Law, MEDIUM (June 2019) available athttps://medium.com/@ejwalters/who-owns-the-law-5e356ea5b5f8 (June 2019).
Artificial Intelligence: Practice, Not Promise, in Law Firms, 45 ABA LAW PRACTICE MAGAZINE 1 (Jan. 2019).
Inside the Black Box of Search Algorithms: A behind-the-scenes look at the algorithms that rank results in Bloomberg Law, Fastcase, Lexis Advance, and Westlaw, AALL SPECTRUM (with Susan Nevelow Mart, Joe Breda, Tito Sierra & Khalid Al-Kofahi) (Nov.-Dec. 2019).
Putting Artificial Intelligence to Work in Law Firms, 23 AALL SPECTRUM No. 1 (Sep.-Oct. 2018) (with Morgan Wright).
Amazon LLP: If Amazon Ran a Law Firm, What Would it Look Like? MEDIUM, available at https://medium.com/@ejwalters/amazon-llp-1b721ed4baad (Apr. 2018).Practical Magic: Law’s Hands-on AI Revolution, ABA LAW PRACTICE MAGAZINE (Jan. 2018) (with James Sherer).
Makers in the Library: The New Age of Hands-on Artificial Intelligence, in The Evolution of the Law Firm Library Function: Transformation and Integration into the Business of Law (Ark Group 2018) (with Sean Tate).
The Decision Advantage: Making Small Data Work for Your Firm, 89 OKLA. BAR J. No. 13, 32 (2018) (with Morgan Wright).
Read/Write: Artificial Intelligence in Law Libraries, 22 AALL SPECTRUM 1, 21 (2017).
Using Small Data to Make Big Decisions, 43 ABA LAW PRACTICE MAGAZINE 36 (2017).
Data is the New Oil: Legal Management Lessons from John D. Rockefeller, Medium, available at https://medium.com/@ejwalters/data-is-the-new-oil-refining-information-from-data-lessons-from-john-d-aa4b7b5ee1a3 (Jan. 2017).
The Tyranny of Hunches: Using Analytics to Give Your Firm a Strategic Advantage, 90 FLA. BAR J. 46 (2016).
The Industrial (Legal) Revolution, ABA LAW PRACTICE TODAY (2016).
URLs or UPL? Using Software to Close the Access to Justice Gap, in Strategic Intelligence for Law Firms (Ark Group 2016) (with Jeffrey Asjes).
Data is the New Oil: Refining Information from Data, MANAGING PARTNER MAGAZINE (Dec. 2015).
Tear Down This (Pay)wall: The End of Private Copyright in Public Statutes, VOX POPULII BLOG available at:https://blog.law.cornell.edu/voxpop/2011/07/15/tear-down-this-paywall/ (July 2011).
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
The Overwhelmed Legal Professional’s Advantage: Thriving in an Age of AI, Legal AI Virtual Summit (Dec. 4, 2025).
All in One, or Best in Class, TLTF Summit (Nov. 13, 2025).
Merging Legal Tech: Legal AI Through the Lens of Two Major Business Deals, Harvard Law School (Oct. 23, 2025).
How to Prepare Your Firm (and Team) for the Generative AI Era, ClioCon (Oct. 17, 2025).
AI & The Future of Legal Work, Harbor LINKS, keynote address (Sept. 25, 2025).
Legal Tech Update: AI in the Practice of Law and Policymaking Process, Georgetown Law Tech Foundations for Government Staff: Spotlight on AI (Aug.2025).
The Netflix Law Firm: How Forward-Thinking Legal Teams are Gaining the Edge, Keynote Address, State Bar of Nevada Annual Meeting (June 2025).
Navigating the AI Frontier: Innovations and Regulations, Fireside Chat, University of Chicago Research Computing Expo and Symposium (April 2025).
A Brief History of Legal AI: A Look Back and a Preview of What’s Next, (with Dan Katz), American Bar Association TECHSHOW (April 2025).
AI & the Future of Legal Work, Keynote Address, LawDroid AI Conference (March 2025).
Practical Magic: How (Real) Lawyers are Using AI in Practice, Virginia State Bar Continuing Legal Education (Sept. 2024).
AI and the Future of Law and Democracy, Keynote address, Colleges of Law AI Symposium (Sept. 2024).
Who’s Responsible When AI Takes the Wheel? Tech Foundations for Government Staff, Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy (Aug. 2024).
Artificial Lawyering – Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy (Feb. 2024).
LawGPT? Generative AI, ChatGPT, LLMs, and the Legal Data-Driven Revolution, Keynote, Arkansas Bar Annual Meeting (June 2024).
Ethical Use of Generative AI in Law, Keynote address, Symposium on AI and the Future of Law and Democracy (May 2024).
The Rise of AI in the Legal Profession: Lawyers Brace for Impact, U.S. Court of Federal Claims (with Sharon Nelson and John Simek, November 2023).
Making the New Legal Market: Lessons from Netflix, Keynote Address, 2023 American Immigration Lawyers Association Annual Meeting, available at: https://youtu.be/vi_IOMAPPmI (June 2023).
Data Analytics in Law: Clio Cloud Conference, available at: https://youtu.be/iNafjrqvnww (Oct. 2018).
The Malpractice of Hunches, Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, available at:https://vimeo.com/279258224 (May 2018).
Law’s Future from Finance’s Past: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Fin(Legal) Tech Conference, Chicago, Ill., available athttps://vimeo.com/244906598 (Nov. 2017).
The Law of Robots, Cornell University Law School, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHVF8QYfN0Y (Oct. 2014).
Who Owns the Law? ReinventLaw Silicon Valley, available at:https://vimeo.com/63123518 (Sept. 2013).
The Pursuit of Happiness, Commencement Address, University of Illinois College of Law (June 2012).
Law as Public Infrastructure: Parallels to Interstate Highways, Center for American Progress, available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjpafDK6tNU (June 2010).
