ZwillGen announced the acquisition of Luminos.Law, bolstering its ranks and adding a specific artificial intelligence compliance focus to the long-standing technology legal firm.
Luminos frames itself as the first firm focused on AI governance where counsel was given by both lawyers and data scientists, with a specific focus on privacy, security and transparency issues related to AI and its data. Luminos co-founder Andrew Burt spun off his own team to create Luminos.AI, a venture capital firm focused on AI governance software in spring 2024. That firm is separate from Luminos.Law and will not be affected by the acquisition, said Brenda Leong, AIGP, CIPP/US, Luminos co-founder and IE University Law School adjunct professor.
ZwillGen focuses on a variety of digital compliance areas, including AI, children's privacy, consumer privacy and transactions and data issues in marketing and advertising, according to its website. The firm was founded in 2010 by Marc Zwillinger, a former U.S. Department of Justice cybercrime prosecutor, and Christian Genetski, who is now the president of online gambling company FanDuel.
The acquisition is a sign of the growing demand for people skilled in AI legalese and compliance as more U.S. states look to tackle AI and the EU AI Act's various compliance dates approach. Both Leong and Zwillinger said companies will need help understanding the various requirements for regulations and help demonstrating the reliability of their AI products to avoid legal trouble.
"Next year, regardless of the administration (running the U.S. government), is going to be a lot about whether people's claims about AI are accurate, whether they can substantiate them, whether AI is doing what it purports to be doing, both from a legal plane perspective and from a technical perspective," Zwillinger said.
The acquisition comes a few months after ZwillGen expanded its practice by four attorneys, including its first U.K.-based attorney. Zwillinger said discussions of acquiring Luminos.Law began last fall, with a deal closing 31 Dec. 2024.
For Leong, the move was a chance to access more resources and work with AI in a broader sense. For Zwillinger, the deal allows ZwillGen to offer bias testing and red teaming advice in a more nuanced way.
"This is definitely a capacity we didn't have before and we thought our clients would be super interested in having it, because we think it’s going to be increasingly important to do AI testing and substantiation," Zwillinger said.
Those perspectives will be necessary even without a standalone AI regulation in the U.S. Zwillinger said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has made clear it will be paying attention to deceptive unfair trade practices. Helping companies sort out their "friction" with the government is where ZwillGen's expertise lie, he noted.
Luminos will still be providing AI governance counsel to reduce the risk of friction, Leong said. That means creating an AI governance structure where the company has an internal sense of what AI their using and how it works and what kinds of protections to put in place. That setup positions businesses better in the long run, no matter where AI compliance questions may arise.
"They can adjust those policies or adapt those to particular jurisdictional requirements, like the EU AI Act, individual state laws, privacy laws, biometrics laws — there are a lot of things that have pieces of AI attached to them that are not necessarily just an AI law that impact their internal policies and practices and decisions," Leong said.
Caitlin Andrews is a staff writer for the IAPP.
