AI is moving from experimental tools to embedded infrastructure across government and business, and the legal questions are moving just as fast. Policy positions, privacy impacts, procurement clauses, sector-specific risk, governance arrangements: every agency or company faces its own version of these, sometimes without a settled answer yet.
I help clients work through them, both as a lawyer with current public and private-sector AI experience, and as someone genuinely close to how these tools work. I follow the field daily, research provider terms, and build AI-powered tools myself. That combination matters now: AI legal work increasingly demands fluency with the technology, not just the law.
01 – CAPABILITIES
How I can help.
Three pillars covering AI from policy through to deployment, backed by hands-on experience with the tools themselves.
02 – EXPERIENCE
Selected experience.
A handful of representative projects, anonymised as appropriate, covering AI deployment inside agencies and the provision of AI tooling to customers.
CASE 01
AI policies for two Crown entities
Provided legal and other input into AI policies and usage guides for two Crown entities, one a Crown agent, the other an independent Crown entity.
Role: External counsel, review and input
CASE 03
AI in the health sector under HIPC
Provided advice to an agency on issues under the Health Information Privacy Code associated with health practitioners' deployment of AI.
Role: External counsel
CASE 02
Copilot privacy impact assessment
Undertook a privacy impact assessment on an agency's proposed deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot - surfacing risks and making recommendations to mitigate them.
Role: PIA lead
CASE 04
AI clauses, public and private sector
Drafted AI-specific clauses for a collaborative contract used across government, and AI-clauses for a company's provision of AI tooling to its public and private sector customers.
Role: External counsel, drafting
“
Richard supported our deployment of Copilot - not only providing us with a thorough Privacy Impact Assessment, but helping us with our AI strategy more generally. He understands our work and our values - in short, he's a highly valued member of our team.
Chief Executive
INDEPENDENT MONITOR OF THE ORANGA TAMARIKI SYSTEM
03 – TOOLS I BUILT
Tools to help deploy AI safely.
Structured input, risk assessment, valuable output, and the same automation-first instinct that drives the Contract Foundry.
AI Impact Check
AI Impact Check walks you through a structured assessment of an AI tool you're considering — privacy risks, confidentiality, hidden impacts, and the conditions under which it can safely be used. The output is a report you can stand behind. Currently a work-in-progress.
"Building tools like this changes how you advise on them. You see where the seams are, where the risks lie, and what providers will and won't commit to."
Have an AI matter or question in mind?
Happy to jump on Teams or Zoom to talk it through. Just a 15-min chat to see if I'm the right fit.