Practical Guidance for Navigating Generative AI Ethics and Risk (Presented by Troutman Pepper Locke)

Alison A. Grounds, eMerge Managing Partner | Troutman eMerge

Alison A. Grounds is the founder and Managing Partner of Troutman eMerge, a wholly owned subsidiary of Troutman Pepper Locke that delivers end-to-end, integrated discovery services and data management consulting for legal matters. Combining deep litigation experience with a practical, efficiency-focused approach, Alison helps clients across industries leverage data effectively, reduce costs, and manage the legal and technical risks that arise at the intersection of discovery, technology, and artificial intelligence. She advises clients on all aspects of discovery-related litigation, internal and governmental investigations, subpoena response, due diligence, and proactive litigation readiness, including the deployment and integration of AI in litigation workflows. She also serves as national discovery counsel for clients managing large portfolios of related matters, ensuring consistent, defensible approaches to eDiscovery across cases.

Education & Credentials

• Alison earned her J.D., with honors, from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2001, and her B.A., summa cum laude, from Loyola University in 1997. She is admitted to the Georgia State Bar and to the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Middle Districts of Georgia.

Recognition & Leadership

• Alison has received sustained national recognition for her work at the intersection of law and technology. She was named a recipient of the Legaltech News Monica Bay Women of Legal Tech Award in 2025 and was recognized as an “AI Visionary” by Relativity in its inaugural 2022 AI Visionaries list. She has been consistently ranked by Chambers USA and Chambers Global in E-Discovery & Information Governance, Nationwide (2015–2025 and 2024–2025, respectively), and is listed in Best Lawyers in America for Electronic Discovery and Information Management Law (2023–2026) and Privacy and Data Security Law (2021–2026). Additional recognition includes the Thomson Reuters Stand-out Lawyer designation (2022–2025), Benchmark Litigation’s “Local Litigation Star” in Georgia (2022–2025), Legal 500 United States for E-Discovery (2021–2022, 2024–2025), and the Daily Report’s 2020 Georgia Trailblazer award.

Professional Involvement

• Alison serves on the Advisory Board and Planning Committee of the Georgetown Advanced eDiscovery Institute (2022–present) and is a member of the Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1). She previously served on the Georgia State Bar eDiscovery Task Force (2012–2015) and is a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America and the Leadership Counsel on Legal Diversity. Within Troutman Pepper Locke, she chairs the firm’s Innovation Committee, serves on the Policy Committee, and leads the firm’s Generative AI Task Force.

Experience

• Alison’s representative matters span the full scope of complex discovery. She has served as national coordinating discovery counsel for clients involved in 90 or more related but separate litigation matters, building repeatable workflows for ESI preservation, collection, analysis, and production. She has successfully secured case-terminating sanctions against adversaries who destroyed and withheld key documents, and has defended clients against terminating sanctions motions through comprehensive remediation efforts. Her work also includes limiting discovery costs in class-action antitrust litigation through negotiated ESI protocols and coordinating international discovery for EU-based clients navigating GDPR and country-specific privacy regimes.

David M. Stauss, Partner | Troutman Pepper Locke

David M. Stauss is a Partner in the Privacy + Cyber practice at Troutman Pepper Locke, where he advises clients on the full spectrum of state, federal, and international privacy, cybersecurity, and AI law. Recognized by Chambers USA for his ability to provide actionable guidance both in the moment and for long-term planning, David works with clients across their organizational life cycle — helping them understand and comply with rapidly evolving legal requirements, leading comprehensive responses to cybersecurity incidents, and advising on privacy considerations in transactions. His counseling encompasses U.S. comprehensive state privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, children’s privacy and social media laws, data broker statutes, biometric and health information privacy laws, AI laws and regulations including the Colorado AI Act, and international frameworks including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Education & Credentials

• David received his J.D., with highest honors, from Rutgers Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Rutgers Law Journal. He earned his B.A., cum laude, from American University, where he served as president of the Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society. He is admitted to the bars of Colorado, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and to the U.S. District Courts for the Districts of Colorado and New Jersey and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He clerked for the Hon. James R. Zazzali of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Recognition & Leadership

• David is widely recognized as a leading voice in privacy and cybersecurity law. He has been ranked by Chambers and Partners in the Global Guide and USA Nationwide for Privacy & Data Security: Privacy (2024–2025) and received Thomson Reuters Stand-Out Lawyer recognition (2023–2025). He holds consistent recognition from JD Supra Readers’ Choice Awards, including the top author designation in Data Privacy (2022–2023) and Data Privacy recognition (2024–2025) and was named a Lexology Legal Influencer in TMT for the U.S. (Q3 2025). Additional recognition includes Legal 500 United States for Cyber Law (2025) and 5280 Magazine’s Denver Top Lawyer in Communications/Technology (2025).

Professional Involvement

• David is a prolific writer and speaker on privacy and cybersecurity, and has been quoted in major outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Law, The Hill, CBS News, Law360, and Corporate Counsel, among others.

Experience

• David advises clients on compliance strategy across a rapidly shifting legal landscape, managing multi-state breach notifications, guiding clients through data security incident response, and providing counsel on emerging AI regulations as they take shape at the state, federal, and international levels.

Jessica Kozlov Davis, Chief Intake and Conflicts Officer | Troutman Pepper Locke

Jessica Kozlov Davis serves as Chief Intake and Conflicts Officer at Troutman Pepper Locke, where she leads the Intake and Conflicts Services Department and holds a seat on the firm’s Office of General Counsel. In that role, she advises the firm’s attorneys on professional responsibility and ethics-related matters across a range of practice contexts, including issues arising from the use of artificial intelligence.

Education & Credentials

• Jessica earned her LL.M. in trial advocacy from Temple University in 2008, her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2002 — where she served as a notes editor for the Michigan Law Review and as a board member of the Campbell Moot Court — and her B.A., cum laude, in English from Duke University in 1999, where she was senior news editor of The Chronicle. She is admitted to the bars of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Eastern District of New York, and Southern District of New York.

Professional Involvement

• Jessica is a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Professional Guidance Committee, which issues informal and formal ethics opinions to Philadelphia attorneys. She teaches professional responsibility as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and previously taught advanced legal writing as an adjunct professor at Widener Law School.

Experience

• Before joining Troutman Pepper Locke, Jessica practiced as an attorney in the litigation departments of other large law firms. She has participated in numerous continuing legal education programs as both a course planner and panelist, with a particular focus on legal ethics, including matters at the intersection of ethics and artificial intelligence.

Jennifer M. Doran, Senior Attorney | Troutman eMerge

Jennifer M. Doran is a Senior Attorney on the Troutman eMerge team, based in the firm’s Chicago office. In her practice, Jennifer applies extensive experience in eDiscovery, information governance, and data protection with a focused emphasis on complex litigation and government investigations. She advises case teams on best practices and collaborates directly with attorneys to develop and deploy strategies designed to achieve each client’s specific goals and outcomes. Jennifer excels in leveraging technology, including artificial intelligence, to understand data and maximize efficiency across every phase of fact gathering and analysis, from initial case assessment through the identification of the most effective evidence for trial.

Education & Credentials

• Jennifer earned her J.D. from Emory University School of Law in 2008 and her B.A. from Duke University in 2003. She is admitted to the Illinois State Bar and is fluent in Spanish.

Professional Involvement

• Jennifer maintains active membership in several professional organizations, including ACEDS (Chicago Chapter), the American Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, and Women in eDiscovery. She is also a co-author of “Streamlining eDiscovery: The Case for Supervised Collections and Custodial Interviews,” published by Troutman Pepper Locke in February 2025.

Experience

• Jennifer is a frequent speaker and panelist on eDiscovery and legal technology topics. She presented at the Troutman Pepper Locke webinar on Practical Guidance for Navigating Generative AI Ethics and Risk (February 2026), an ESI Protocols Webinar for Troutman Pepper Locke (August 2025), The Attorney Lounge Podcast on the Art of Strategic Discovery (April 2024), an EDRM Webinar on Modern Dynamics of Working with Deposition Transcripts (November 2023), RelativityFest’s Lessons Learned in RelativityOne luncheon (September 2023), the Nextpoint Onpoint Conference (September 2023), The Masters Conference panel on the Challenges of Bring Your Own Device (April 2023), and an ACEDS Chicago Chapter panel on the Top 3 Ways to Use AI and Machine Learning in Every Case (September 2022).

I. Welcome, Objectives & Framing | 12:00pm – 12:05pm

This opening session launches the speaker panel and establishes the program’s four core priorities: Building a practical AI framework, understanding ethics and court rules, meeting client obligations, and implementing risk mitigation strategies. Attendees leave with a clear roadmap for the hour and a firm grasp of why generative AI demands immediate professional attention from every practicing attorney.

II. AI in Legal Practice: Tools, Trends, and Firm Use | 12:05pm – 12:15pm

This segment surveys the current generative AI landscape in legal practice, drawing a critical distinction between general-purpose consumer tools and legal-specific platforms, and examining how Troutman Pepper Locke has structured its AI Hub and Athena platform around firm-wide training and policy requirements. A live audience poll invites attendees to reflect on their own current AI use and situate their practice within the broader adoption landscape.

III. Hypothetical 1 – “Complaint Craft” (Drafting with AI: Ethics, Privacy & Courts) | 12:15pm – 12:30pm

Working through a scenario in which an attorney uses AI to draft multiple complaints incorporating client and patient data, this session delivers hands-on issue spotting across privacy, security, confidentiality, court rules, and client-specific requirements. Speakers examine data handling obligations, the critical differences between free and enterprise AI products, vendor due diligence responsibilities, court-imposed sanctions tied to AI-generated filings, and the ABA and state bar ethics rules that govern every stage of AI-assisted drafting.

IV. Hypothetical 2 – “Your Virtual Associate” (Supervision, Candor & Court Policies) | 12:30pm – 12:50pm

This session works through a scenario in which co-counsel uses generative AI to improve a brief and hallucinated citations are discovered, using a live poll to explore responsibility allocation and sanctions exposure for supervising counsel. Speakers apply Model Rules 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 to the supervision and competence obligations at play, survey court policies on generative AI use, and extend the analysis to AI-assisted memos, paralegal use, client self-use of AI, and the emerging ethical challenges posed by agentic AI systems and digital twins.

V. Reducing AI Risk & Key Takeaways | 12:50pm – 1:00pm

The closing segment delivers practical, human-centered strategies for safe AI use in legal work, covering the institutional controls, written policies, approved tool lists, documented workflows, and training requirements, that protect attorneys and clients alike. Speakers address jurisdiction-specific ethics considerations, leaving attendees with a concrete, actionable framework for integrating generative AI responsibly into their practice.